Oral Answers to Questions

WALES

The Secretary of State was asked—

Blood Transfusions (Cancer Patients)

Dai Havard: What discussions he has had with (a) the Department of Health, (b) the National Assembly for Wales and (c) others about the greater use of alternatives to blood transfusions for cancer patients in Wales.

Don Touhig: My right hon. Friend and I have many meetings, both with my colleagues in other Government Departments, such as the Department of Health, and with colleagues in the National Assembly for Wales. The provision of health care in Wales is a topic that we regularly discuss.

Dai Havard: I thank my hon. Friend for that answer. May I share some information with him? He will know that I have been campaigning about the use of blood alternatives for some time. The latest research from the renowned Health Economist Catalyst will show on Saturday that £600 million is now spent on transfusions within the hospital stay element alone. These are bed days that need not be used if there were alternatives. The economics are already proven. I welcome the possible referral of this issue to the National Institute for Clinical Excellence, but that will take quite a time to take place. Perhaps my hon. Friend will agree with me that simple changes in Government policy and departmental policy could effect step changes as opposed to incremental changes.

Don Touhig: I am aware of my hon. Friend's interest in this matter. Indeed, he referred to it during Second Reading of the Health (Wales) Bill, which took place about a week ago. I am aware that he favours the use of alternatives to blood transfusions for patients with cancer. However, it is important to point out that each individual case is a matter for the health professionals. They decide on the appropriate treatment for any patient. As I have said, I am aware of my hon. Friend's concerns. I shall ensure that they are brought to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health.

Manufacturing Industry

Nicholas Winterton: If he will make a statement on the state of manufacturing industry in Wales.

Peter Hain: Although manufacturing has had a tough time, the picture for Welsh industry as a whole is promising, including Ford's new investment at Bridgend involving an estimated 640 jobs.

Nicholas Winterton: I am grateful for the rational response that I have received from the Secretary of State. He will be aware that United Kingdom manufacturing output last June fell by the largest amount ever, which was 5.3 per cent., and that there was a similar fall in all parts of the UK. Are the Government aware that some of their measures of increased regulation and indirect taxation, despite what they are doing with corporation tax, are placing unbearable burdens upon industry? Will the right hon. Gentleman do his best to do something about it?

Peter Hain: As the hon. Gentleman will know, as a keen enthusiast for manufacturing—that is something that I share with him—corporation tax for small companies has been cut hugely by the Government, which is much to our credit. He will also, as a follower of manufacturing in Wales, have read this morning's Western Mail—

Nicholas Winterton: Of course.

Peter Hain: Otherwise, he would not be asking the question. He will have read that 50 small companies—fast-growth world-beating companies—have been identified as doing very well. They have created more than 800 new jobs over the past two years. This is a pattern of Wales doing well against a difficult international climate, with employment climbing with 33,000 extra jobs between July and September. Newport, Cardiff and Swansea have some of the fastest-growing companies in Britain, and Wales has one of the lowest levels of business failure in Britain. The Welsh Development Agency has created more than 2,000 new businesses over the past year. Despite the difficult international climate, Wales is doing much better than it has ever done before in these circumstances.

Ian Lucas: Is my right hon. Friend aware that only yesterday in Wrexham, a major multinational company, Owens Corning, announced redundancies involving 230 highly skilled jobs? These jobs are moving to mainland Europe. Will my right hon. Friend join me in carrying out a detailed investigation to ascertain why the company has made this decision, and then make representations within the Cabinet on my behalf to ensure that this does not happen again?

Peter Hain: I regret the company's decision and acknowledge the diligence with which my hon. Friend approaches the local economy, especially local manufacturers. I understand that no amount of financial assistance from the Government or the Welsh Assembly would have saved the plant. The company was determined to shift it to eastern countries because of cheaper labour costs. The lesson for us is that we must constantly increase our value-added production, upskill and go for high quality jobs and investment. In that context, I visited Wrexham with my hon. Friend recently to ascertain the local picture, which includes a high quality, world-class company, CP Pharmaceuticals. It shows that Wrexham is going places under the Government.

Adam Price: According to the latest Office for National Statistics figures, there was a net loss of 160,000 manufacturing jobs in the three months to September. That works out at a rate of 10,000 jobs a week. Four years ago, when the Secretary of State was Minister with responsibility for the industry, he wrote to the Chancellor to draw attention to the impact of the high pound on manufacturing. Given that the pound is higher now than it was then, will he write to his right hon. Friend again?

Peter Hain: Unemployment in the hon. Gentleman's constituency has fallen by half under the Labour Government. That shows that Labour policies are working where nationalist policies would have failed. I draw his attention to Carmarthen county council's five-year master plan, which aims to create almost 5,000 jobs and safeguard another 2,000, thus revitalising the country's economy. Under the Government and the National Assembly for Wales, more business opportunities are being created day by day, new start-ups are taking place and Wales is doing better than many other parts of the world, including many advanced economies such as Canada and countries in Europe. That is a tribute to the success of the Government's policies—

Adam Price: In manufacturing?

Peter Hain: It is a tribute to their success, including in manufacturing. I tell the nationalists not to talk down Welsh manufacturing because many good Welsh manufacturers have weathered the difficult international climate and are doing well.

Betty Williams: Will my right hon. Friend hold early discussions with his ministerial colleagues about the difficulties that manufacturers experience in north Wales, including in my constituency, in obtaining public liability insurance at reasonable costs?

Peter Hain: I take my hon. Friend's point. That is one of the reasons why we are working closely with her, other colleagues in Parliament and the National Assembly to tackle those problems and provide new opportunities.

Nigel Evans: No hon. Member is talking down Welsh manufacturing, but the Government are letting it down. Is not the problem with the Government's policy on manufacturing the fact that they do not have one? Business failure is much sharper in Wales than anywhere else in the United Kingdom. Job losses are occurring at an alarming rate.
	In 1997, there were 210,000 manufacturing jobs; today, there are 186,000. We learned yesterday of the sad closure of Owens Corning with the loss of 230 fibreglass manufacturing jobs. Why do the Government not appear to care about manufacturing?

Peter Hain: That is a bit rich from a member of a party that hammered Welsh manufacturing, slashing jobs in mining, steel and heavy industry so that unemployment leapt to 168,000 at its peak under Mrs. Thatcher. We have already introduced policies under which jobs have increased and more and more companies have started up, including in manufacturing. Wales has gone for high-value-added, high-skill, high-tech jobs because that is our future.

Nigel Evans: There are fewer manufacturing jobs in Wales today than in 1997. Surely manufacturers want a bonfire of useless regulations and a Government that understand their needs. They need a manufacturing champion in Cabinet who will be prepared to speak up for them.
	The Secretary of State is a great fan of our emerging eastern European neighbours, but travelling to those countries and seeing our manufacturing jobs that have been exported there cannot be acceptable. Will he hold urgent meetings with manufacturers to discuss the measures that can be introduced to tackle the manufacturing meltdown in Wales?

Peter Hain: If the hon. Gentleman were a Welsh Member of Parliament, he would know that employment in Wales has increased by 33,000 in the past year, and that businesses are starting up all the time. He would know that the Welsh economy is doing better than ever in the context of an international recession. The hon. Gentleman should stop talking Wales down.

Win Griffiths: Will my right hon. Friend hold discussions with the Welsh Development Agency and people in the automotive industry to support the huge new investment at Ford in Bridgend—it will make that plant the major engine manufacturer in the European Union—and build up a centre of excellence for the world automotive industry with a world-class company?

Peter Hain: Yes, indeed, and I acknowledge my hon. Friend's role in helping to attract that extra investment. If Wales were doing as badly in manufacturing as the Conservatives and the nationalists maintain—following the same line, one might note—why would a world-beating company such as Ford choose to locate this extra investment in south Wales? It is doing so because Wales is doing well.

National Emergencies

Anne McIntosh: What discussions he has had with ministerial and National Assembly colleagues about contingency planning for national emergencies.

Peter Hain: I have regular meetings with ministerial and National Assembly colleagues in which we discuss a range of topics including contingency planning.

Anne McIntosh: I am delighted that the Secretary of State has found his place. Will he join me in expressing concern about who has responsibility in the event of a national emergency in Wales? The National Audit Office has said that the health service across Britain would struggle to cope. This place is responsible for security, defence and foreign policy. The First Minister is responsible for the side effects. Who is ultimately responsible?

Peter Hain: I should first acknowledge that the hon. Lady has the civil contingencies college in her constituency, which helps to train people to deal with national emergencies. The idea that the preparations for national emergencies—be they attacks by al-Qaeda or other threats—are not full and comprehensive is simply nonsense. At a time when we face the threat of attack, is the hon. Lady really suggesting that a time-consuming and costly wholesale reorganisation of Whitehall is the way forward, as the Conservatives have suggested? The truth is that the National Assembly and the Government are well prepared and ready to take on any threat, should it arise.

Alan Williams: Will the Secretary of State bear in mind that the National Audit Office report that was just referred to revealed that, in England, there is incredible variability in the state of preparedness in the health service for a national emergency, particularly a terrorist attack? Will he draw the NAO report to the attention of our colleagues in Wales? Will he also ask them to ensure, given the restructuring that is going on in the health service in Wales, that we will still be able to maintain focused, co-ordinated preparations to protect the people of Wales?

Peter Hain: I am grateful for my right hon. Friend's question. I assure him that we have a United Kingdom national reserve stock of pharmaceuticals and equipment ready for rapid deployment in the event of any such attack. In Wales, there is a rapid response team to manage, for example, cases of smallpox, in the event of a biological attack being waged. The National Assembly has undoubtedly made preparations, but my right hon. Friend's point will be well taken.

Governmental Institutions

David Burnside: What assessment he has made of the democratic accountability of governmental institutions in Wales since the establishment of the National Assembly for Wales.

Peter Hain: The National Assembly for Wales has helped to make the Government of Wales more accountable to the people of Wales.

David Burnside: I am interested in the Secretary of State's comment that the Assembly has improved democratic accountability. Under this Government, the nation has gone through major constitutional change in three parts of the kingdom—Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland—with three different kinds of institution devolved to those three parts. Will the right hon. Gentleman enter into talks with his predecessor, now in the Northern Ireland Office, and pass on to him the benefits of the form of devolution in Wales—administrative devolution—which might be more appropriate for Northern Ireland than the present system, which has no collective Cabinet responsibility and a weak Committee system?

Peter Hain: No, I will not do that, because the different forms of devolution are tailored to the different needs of the different nations involved. The particular pattern of devolution that we have in Wales is Executive devolution, not legislative devolution. It has been working very well, and we are looking at ways of improving it all the time.

Denzil Davies: Does my right hon. Friend agree that, because Wales is the land of quangos, we have a particular problem with the lack of accountability of government institutions? Would he also agree that those who falsely promised, before the referendum, that there would be a bonfire of quangos, had no intention of honouring that promise once the referendum was won?

Peter Hain: I do not agree with my right hon. Friend. One advantage of the National Assembly, which I am sure he accepts, is that it can hold accountable all the different agencies that are answerable to it much more directly. Therefore, they can work more effectively for the people of Wales.

Lembit �pik: To what extent does that democratic accountability extend to involving leading Welsh language institutions such as the Nant Gwrtheyrn National Centre for Language and Culture in north Wales, which not only offers exceptional training in the language, but whose tutors and staff are well placed to provide guidance to Cardiff and Westminster Departments on Welsh-related matters?

Peter Hain: I take the hon. Gentleman's contribution with great interest, as I understand that he is a Welsh learner. I congratulate him on thatllongyfarchiadau. I very much support the Assembly's programme to extend support for the Welsh language, including an action plan announced only a week ago. [Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. The House is far too noisy.

Llew Smith: The Secretary of State was one of the leading figures in the campaign for a XYes vote in the referendum, but, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli (Denzil Davies) said, the commitment was not just to change the political complexion of the quangos, but to make a bonfire of them. If that was not a publicity stunt, will the Secretary of State explain why there are as many quangos as when the Welsh Assembly was set up? What discussions is he having with the First Minister, who seems equally at ease with a quango state as does the Secretary of State?

Peter Hain: First, although I shall not go into detail, I repeat the point that I made to my right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli: the Assembly provides for all its agencies to be much more accountable to government in Wales than was possible when government was administered from here. The truth is that we have much more responsive and accountable government in Wales, which was not the case under the previous Conservative Government when quangos, whose membership was usually rigged, flourished.

Nigel Evans: I see that the Secretary of State is a Welsh learner and I wish him well in that. The fact is that the devolved system of government was voted for by a thin margin by the people of Wales, but if the Ivor Richard commission recommends further powers being transferred from Westminster to the Welsh Assembly, will the Secretary of State give the people another voice in another referendum?

Peter Hain: I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman's comments on my Welsh learning abilitydiolch yn fawr i chi. On the general question of increased powers, the Welsh Assembly is getting increased influence and powers as matters are devolved from here and fresh primary legislation is passed, such as that on the children's commissioner and the Health (Wales) Bill, which is going through the House. We shall await the outcome of the Richard commission and any debate on that before taking any decisions.

Bluestone Project

Jackie Lawrence: What discussions he has had with the Economic Development Secretary of the National Assembly concerning investment in the Bluestone project in west Wales.

Don Touhig: My right hon. Friend and I have regular discussions with the National Assembly's Economic Development Secretary on a range of issues, including the excellent news of Pembrokeshire's Bluestone project. I welcome the success of Team Wales, which is working together to deliver hundreds of jobs for the economy of west Wales.

Jackie Lawrence: When I tabled my question, I expected to have to come here today to lobby for such investment, so that news is very welcome, as 600 much-needed full-time year-round jobs will be created in an area that depends heavily on the tourism industry. Does my hon. Friend agree that that is an example of how local indigenous business can come up with the goods and provide stable jobs when it is given the same investment as was previously reserved for inward investors?

Don Touhig: My hon. Friend is right. We are in an environment in which we are encouraging projects such as that in Narberth in her constituency. The 45 million of investment is most welcome and 600 year-round jobs will be provided. Indeed, the package, which involves 16.5 million, is the largest to be put together by Team Wales, which shows the commitment of the Government, our partners, the Labour-led National Assembly and the local authorities and others who are ensuring that the project is a success for west Wales.

Tourism

Michael Fabricant: What assessment he has made of the impact of the foot and mouth epidemic and September 11 on tourism into Wales from (a) England and (b) abroad.

Don Touhig: There is strong and positive evidence of recovery in the tourism industry in Wales in 2002 compared with 2001. I know that the hon. Gentleman is a regular visitor to Wales, and makes an important contribution to the growth of our tourism industry.

Michael Fabricant: As the Minister knows, I am a keen climber of Cader Idris. When I go to climb Cader Idris, of course I stay at Dolffanog Fach with Sioned and Danny Oliver. But does the Minister realise that only 2 per cent. of overseas visitors to the United Kingdom go to Wales? What can he do, and what can the Welsh tourism industry do, to attract more overseas visitorsnot just me from England!to Wales?

Don Touhig: The guest house at Dolffanog Fach must be the most famous in Britain. I think that was the third time the hon. Gentleman has referred to it since I have been a Wales Office Minister.
	In fact, only last night I discussed the subject of bringing people to Wales from abroad with Charles Skinner, an official from the American Embassy, in the Wales office. I can tell the hon. Gentleman that the Wales tourist board has a record budget of 23 million for 200203. A further 15.3 million will be used through two objective 1 projects, for which the Assembly will provide match funding, as part of a campaign to make Wales better known and to draw in many more visitors.
	I hope that the hon. Gentleman, and all other Members, will continue to visit Wales.

Gareth Thomas: Given the huge potential of tourism to create jobs10 per cent. of the Welsh work force are involved in itdoes the Minister agree that the Wales tourist board should embark on a strong campaign to attract flagship tourism projects to other parts of the Wales, including north Wales and my constituency?

Don Touhig: I have been very impressed by the Wales tourist board's work to promote Wales across the United Kingdom, and in Europe beyond. Tourism is a major contributor to the Welsh economy: about 100,000 people work in tourism in Wales, and it brings in about 2.6 billion in income. It is an important part of our infrastructure, and an important facility that Wales can offer the world. We must do all that we can to promote it.
	As I have said, I am greatly encouraged by the work of the Wales tourist board. I certainly think that my hon. Friend's part of north Wales has many attractions, and that many people would be delighted to visit it.

Roger Williams: Earlier this year I led a delegation of tour operators from objective 2 areas, who explained to the Secretary of State's predecessor the difficulty they were experiencing in using a recovery fund because of European regulations. Since then we have heard nothing from the Wales Office. Can the Minister tell me what progress has been made?

Don Touhig: I know of the hon. Gentleman's concern, and I know about the deputation that he brought to see my right hon. Friend the former Secretary of State.
	The rural recovery plan, which was launched in July 2001, is worth about 65 million. It contains a number of measures to combat the problems we found in rural Wales as a result of the foot and mouth outbreak. Within that spending limit, 21 million has been made available through local authorities to assist small businesses. It is an important contribution to helping small business and the tourism industry in rural Wales to recover.
	Figures indicate that tourism is growing in Wales post-11 September and post-foot and mouth. We must do all that we can to encourage that. [Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. Once again the House is far too noisy.

Pensioners

Julie Morgan: What discussions he has had with ministerial and National Assembly colleagues on help for pensioners in Wales.

Peter Hain: We have regular discussions, and from October 2003 the new pension credit will benefit 250,000 pension households in Wales. Those on 150 a week will receive an extra 21.50, or 1,100 a year.

Julie Morgan: What plans has my right hon. Friend to help sort out the pensions of the work force of Allied Steel and Wire in Cardiff? Does he know the extent of the shortfall in the pension fund, and what discussions is he having with the Department of Work and Pensions?

Peter Hain: I know how much attention and support my hon. Friend has given the workers of ASW, along with her fellow Cardiff members. My hon. Friend the Minister is due to meet officials at the Department of Work and Pensions and the Department of Trade and Industry's redundancy payments service to take the discussions forward.

Simon Thomas: Does the Secretary of State share my concern that more than 40 per cent. of pensioners in Wales are not accessing the minimum income guarantee or the income support that is available to them? What steps are he and his Government going to take to ensure that that money reaches every pensioner in Wales, and that none is worse off simply because they cannot bear to go through a bureaucratic nightmare?

Peter Hain: I agree with the hon. Gentleman that not enough of the poorest pensioners are claiming their entitlement to the minimum pension guarantee, which would lift their income to 102 a week. That measure is part of the Government's strategy of tackling pensioner poverty, and we are trying to encourage all pensioners to take up those opportunities.

PRIME MINISTER

The Prime Minister was asked

Engagements

Henry Bellingham: If he will list his official engagements for Wednesday 4 December.

Tony Blair: This morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others, in addition to my duties in the House. I will have further such meetings later today.

Henry Bellingham: Does the Prime Minister agree with smallbusiness europe, a body funded by the Department of Trade and Industry, which has estimated that the agency workers directive recently passed by the European Parliament could cost 250,000 temporary jobs? The CBI says that if he had not signed up to the social chapter, we would not have to accept this job-destroying directive. Is the CBI right or wrong?

Tony Blair: It is precisely for the reasons outlined by the CBI that we have been trying to make sure that the directive is amended and changed. I very much hope that we will get a satisfactory outcome that will preserve the flexibility of our labour market, but which will also make sure that some agency workersin some cases, they are badly exploitedare given the protection that they need. I believe that signing the social chapter was essential in order to keep this country's influence in social affairs.

John Smith: In the light of the tragic accident in my constituency yesterday, which resulted in the death of 12-year-old Stuart Cunningham-Jones and serious injury to several youngsters, will my right hon. Friend consider setting up a review into the legislation governing the safe transportation of our children to and from school on public service buses?

Tony Blair: I share my hon. Friend's horror at yesterday's accident, and my deepest sympathies go to the family of Stuart Cunningham-Jones and to everyone else affected by this tragedy. As my hon. Friend may know, a full-scale inquiry by the police and the Vehicle Inspectorate is under way. I think that we should await the outcome of that report before we take further steps, but I will keep him closely informed.

Iain Duncan Smith: Does the Prime Minister agree with his Chancellor that top-up fees would prevent young people from low-income families from going to university, and are therefore a ridiculous idea?

Tony Blair: As the right hon. Gentleman knows, in January the Government will publish their conclusions on the student finance review. However, one thing that is absolutely clear is that the status quo is not an option, because universities need more money. Let me give him the facts. They need more money because funding for higher education per student was cut by 36 per cent. under the previous Government. Student-staff ratios have doubled and there is an 8 billion backlog of repairs and investment, so we have to change the existing system.

Iain Duncan Smith: The Prime Minister has said what is clear, but what is not clear is whether he agrees with his right hon. Friend the Chancellor. What is the point of a review, as he describes it, if the Chancellor has already made up his mind? The Chancellor may not have told the Prime Minister, but at a breakfast with The Guardian[Interruption.] Yes, at a breakfast with The Guardian he saidno doubt over mueslithat he favoured a graduate tax. Does the Prime Minister agree with him about that as well?

Tony Blair: The position of the Government will be set out in January. If the right hon. Gentleman is driven to trying to replay second-hand reports of what might have happened at a breakfast held by The Guardian, that indicates the depths to which he has sunk. The fact is that the status quo is not an option. We need to get more money into our university education system, and it can come from the taxpayer, the parent or the student. If it comes from the taxpayer, that means that the majority of peoplewho pay their taxes but who have not been to universitywill have to pay. If it comes from parents, the danger is that the possibility that parents might be forced to pay large amounts of money up front could indeed deter people from university education. The final alternative is the student, yet we do not want students to get further into debt. It is a difficult problem. We are resolving it. We will publish the conclusions in January.

Iain Duncan Smith: But the Chancellor is going around saying things that are completely different from what the Prime Minister has just said. The result is that students up and down the country do not know whether Labour wants them to pay higher fees or higher taxes. If the Prime Minister wants a genuine review, as he has described it, surely he needs to overrule his Chancellor? Will he get to the Dispatch Box and tell us: when the Chancellor said that he was in favour of graduate taxes, was he right or wrong? Yes or no?

Tony Blair: As a review is due to be published in January, it would be absurd for me to give its results now. I assure the right hon. Gentleman, however, that everyone is agreed that we need more money for universities. That should be done in the fairest way possible that does not deter people from lower-income families from going to university. This is an issue that any Government in power would have to tackle.
	If the Leader of the Opposition wants an example of muddle and confusion, let me tell the House what he said his solution was. [Hon. Members: XAh!] Yes, three days ago, the right hon. Gentleman said:
	Xwe have a crisis of funding for higher education.
	His answer to the problem was:
	Xthere are lots of ways you need to look at it, possibly endowing them with money from further sell offs, in this case, we are talking about Channel 4.
	The Leader of the Opposition's idea is that we are going to fund the whole of university education by selling off Channel 4 TV. [Interruption.] If I am wrong, he can come to the Dispatch Box and say so.
	There will be a review. We will publish it in January, and I shall tell the Leader of the Opposition what it will do. It will increase access to university. It will not mean that parents will have to pay thousands of pounds up front in fees. It will allow people the chance to go to university, which hon. Members on the Government side of the House favour, and the right hon. Gentleman does not.

Colin Burgon: Arising from talks that I have had with firefighters in my constituency, I should like to put three points to my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister.

Mr. Speaker: Order. Just one point.

Colin Burgon: Thank you for putting me right, Mr. Speaker.
	In the firefighters' dispute, does the Prime Minister agree that just as there can be no victors, there should be no vanquished, and that we should all be working towards a settlement of the dispute that is fair to all involved and gives us peace in the fire service for the next 25 years?

Tony Blair: I agree with that. We do not want people to feel humiliated. The firefighters of this country, as I have often said, do a fine job of work. I have said it before and I shall say it again: we never sought this dispute. However, I know that my hon. Friend will agree that any settlement has to be fair right across the public service. That is why we have said that firefighters can have the pay award under the existing formula, which is as generous asif not more generous thanthe awards given to teachers, nurses, police officers, members of the armed forces and others. However, if they want more, that has to be paid for by changes in working practices. The one thing that has emerged over the past couple of weeks is that our claim that these practices need change is valid. I hope that people get around the table and negotiate on that basis.

Charles Kennedy: The Prime Minister has again confirmed that the status quo for university education funding is not an option. Will he confirm that he is saying that top-up fees remain under active consideration by the Government?

Tony Blair: Whenever a review is held, it is important to wait for its outcome. My point is that universities need more money because college lecturers are not paid enough, and there is a massive backlog of repairs. There was a 36 per cent. cut in funding per student under the Conservative Government. We have managed only to keep the situation stable, even though we have put more money into universities. We need to get more money into the university sector, but we shall do so in a way that improves access to our universities rather than deters it.

Charles Kennedy: People notice, however, that when given the opportunity, the Prime Minister still refuses to rule out top-up fees. Given that the Chancellor, the Home Secretary, the Secretary of State for Scotland and the Secretary of State for International Development are against them, why does he not look to the Scottish experience, which has kept access to education free at the point of need, reintroduced grants for poorer students and is a much better way forward than the top-up fee?

Tony Blair: I do not agree with the right hon. Gentleman. He omits to say that under the Scottish system, all students have to pay something. There are two separate issues. First, are we to have a flat fee for all universities or will there be a variable fee, with different universities charging different fees? Secondly, if we have a variable fee and agree that all universities should not be treated the same, where do the additional sums of money necessary for universities come from? I am afraid that it can come from only three sourcesthe taxpayer, the parent or the student. What is important is to put together those elements in the fairest possible way. The one thing that I did not notice the right hon. Gentleman say is whether he agrees with me, and with what the Leader of the Opposition said a few days ago, which is that universities desperately need more money. If they do need more money, before the consultation process is over in early January, let us hear from him about his proposals as well.

Meg Munn: Last week the Chancellor announced changes to the landfill tax from next April. Many community projects, such as Heeley city farm in my constituency, have benefited from the scheme. Can the Prime Minister confirm that under the reformed scheme, such community projects will continue to benefit?

Tony Blair: I understand that the changes will be introduced in the financial year 200506. We are consulting on the effect of those changes, but I have listened carefully to my hon. Friend and I am sure that we will take what she says into account.

Ann Widdecombe: Does the Prime Minister agree that it is a basic duty of the Government to supply places for all those whom, for the protection of the public, the courts believe should be in custody? If so, why, despite inheriting the biggest prison-building programme this century and a reduction in overcrowding, do we have the worst overcrowding in our prisons for 10 years?

Tony Blair: First, we are increasing the amount of money that we are spending on prisons and expanding prison places. With the greatest respect to the right hon. Lady, there is an inconsistency in what she says. The very reason why there are more people in prison is precisely that it is the duty of Government to find places in prison for those whom the courts sentence. It is important to realise that we are increasing the supply of places, but I do not think that we can limit arbitrarily the number of people whom the courts send to prison. We are trying to make sure that there are more prison places precisely so that the courts can obey the principle that the right hon. Lady has outlined.

Dennis Skinner: Why did my right hon. Friend not say to the last Tory questioner that we are doing our best to keep the prison population down? We have kept two butlers out of jail in the last three months. What is wrong with a system of justice that allows these people to prepare cases while the police go along with those people at the palace, with the result that the taxpayer finishes up with a loss of 2 million quid? We could use that money for the firefighters.

Tony Blair: I had a bad feeling that you were going to call him, Mr. Speaker.

Dennis Skinner: You will not find the answer in that book.

Tony Blair: Certainly not. If my hon. Friend does not mind, I will reply diplomatically: the Crown Prosecution Service is learning the lessons of both casesand I hope that it will learn them quickly.

Julian Brazier: Last week I asked the Prime Minister about the Chief of the Defence Staff's concerns about training. The right hon. Gentleman replied with the claim:
	XHe did not say that.[Official Report, 25 November 2002; Vol. 395, c. 40.]
	Given that the Downing street website quotes Admiral Boyce as using almost the very words I put to the Prime Minister last week, can the right hon. Gentleman tell us who we should believe?

Tony Blair: My apologies, but I have not checked in with the Downing street website today. I thought that the hon. Gentleman's point was that the Chief of the Defence Staff had said that as a result of the firefighters' dispute, we could not undertake operations in Iraq. I was pointing out that the Chief of the Defence Staff did not say that: he said that we would have the full operational requirement that we needed. I do not have before me the exact words that I said last week, or exactly what is on the Downing street website, or exactly what the Chief of the Defence Staff saidbut I think that I am more right than the hon. Gentleman.

Barry Sheerman: May I take my right hon. Friend back to the question put by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Ms Munn)? Is he not aware that the landfill tax credit scheme is the best and most innovative environmental tax yet introduced by the House, and that it will be not in 200506 but next April that we shall lose between 3,000 and 5,000 jobs in environmental innovation, and 500 million of matched funding will also be lost to environmental innovation? Will my right hon. Friend assure the House that he will look seriously at the matter, and will invite a delegation to visit him to talk about it?

Tony Blair: I shall certainly treat what my hon. Friend says very seriously indeed. I know that landfill tax credit schemes near my constituency have been of enormous benefit. I am informed by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs that we are going to protect the projects that are valuable, so perhaps I can correspond with my hon. Friend about the matterand if he is dissatisfied, yes of course I will see him and his colleagues.

Iain Duncan Smith: Can the Prime Minister tell us how many major road schemes have been started since May 1997?

Tony Blair: I am sorry, I do not know the figure offhand, but I think I am right in saying that there will be 10 of them in this financial year and the next.

Iain Duncan Smith: What the Prime Minister should know is that the Government have started fewer schemes for improving major roads than in any five-year period since the second world war. They have cancelled bypasses and relief schemes that would have eased congestion, so could he perhaps now tell us how many major road schemes were actually completed last year?

Tony Blair: As I say, I do not know the answer offhand, although I shall send the right hon. Gentleman the answer. What I do know, however, is that I think I am right in saying that there are 10 such road schemes this year and next year. It is correct, of course, that for our first two years of government we froze spending. We inherited a very difficult budget deficit and we thought it right to do that, but we are actually putting a substantial amount of money into road schemes now.

Iain Duncan Smith: It is always promises with the Prime Minister, but not a single major road scheme was completed last yearnot one. The result is gridlock Britain. Average journey times under the Labour Government are up by one fifth. The M6 and M25 are virtually car parks, and average traffic speeds in central London are down to 3 mph. After five years of Labour Government, is it not true to say that British motorists pay the highest taxes in Europe for the most congested roads?

Tony Blair: It certainly is right to say that there are severe problems on our roads, which require major investment. That is why there are transport plans for an extra 60 billion worth of investment in our roads. I agree entirely that we need more roads investmentthat is why we are putting in the extra moneybut I am afraid I have to point out that it was only a few days ago that the right hon. Gentleman and the shadow Chancellor told us that they were against all that extra investment, so however difficult the situation is with us, it would surely be even more difficult if we took his advice and cut back the very investment that we are putting in.

Robert Marshall-Andrews: Does the Prime Minister believe that a reduction in human wickedness can be achieved by a reduction in civil liberty?

Tony Blair: No, I do not believe that. What I do believeand I assume that this is what my hon. and learned Friend was getting atis that a criminal justice system that fails to convict the guilty and does not have the confidence of the public is not a criminal justice system that we should support. I believe passionately that reform to our criminal justice system is long overdue, and I hope that both sides of the House will support the proposals put forward by my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, which are the result of a long study and work carried out, as my hon. and learned Friend knows, by Lord Justice Auld, who is very experienced in the criminal justice field.
	I believe that those reforms to our criminal justice system are long overdue. If we are to reduce the stock of human evil, as my hon. and learned Friend put it, of course it is important that we must protect civil libertiesbut we must also protect the civil liberty of people to go around free from fear.

John Taylor: Since the Government's airport consultation process was overturned by the High Court, what comfort has the Prime Minister for the Solihull residents who are now experiencing blight without compensation?

Tony Blair: A lot of what people have said about the consultation process is that it has been too quick, but obviously we have to make sure that we give people the chance to put their views, and, necessarily, when we engage in a review of air transport policy there will be a period of uncertainty. I am afraid that that is the inevitable consequence of having to look at every option.

Jackie Lawrence: May I remind the Prime Minister, just in case he has forgotten, that Wales had led the way yet again by introducing free bus transport for pensionersan example that is shortly to be followed in England? Will he consider extending that concession to disabled people and students in full-time education, both for their own benefit and to decrease car use, but without penalising our pensioners?

Tony Blair: My hon. Friend is right in saying that the policy of the Welsh Assembly includes free bus passes. Our policy is for concessionary half fares. Of course there is also discretion for local authorities, and the new Connexions service will offer certain young people discounts on travel to allow them to get to school or college. However, in the end, all those things come at a significant cost, and it is important to balance out the costs and make sure that the money is used most effectively.

Andrew Murrison: In 1997 the Prime Minister appointed the first ever Minister for Public Health. Since then, excess winter deaths among our elderly, TB, HIV, sexually transmitted diseases, the teenage abortion rate and the health gap between the rich and the poor have all increased. Clearly, the Prime Minister's stewardship of public health has been a disaster. When is it going to improve?

Tony Blair: I do not accept the figures that the hon. Gentleman gives, incidentally. With smoking and in other areas, the Government have made considerable advances. In relation to public health, surely the most important thing is not only the gap between rich and poor, but the overall amount of money that we are putting into the national health service. We are treating more people[Interruption.] We are getting more nurses and doctors into the health service. In the hon. Gentleman's constituency and others, we are building more hospitals. All those things matter to the people of this country, and each and every penny to pay for them is opposed by him and his party.

Tom Levitt: We all recognise that secure recognised borders for Israel and Palestine are an essential part of a long-term middle east solution, and the Prime Minister referred to that with some passion in his speech to the Labour party conference. Can he tell us how he is helping to take that agenda forward?

Tony Blair: I hope very much that we get progress in the middle east on the necessary key issues: security reform, political reform for the Palestinians and final status negotiations. Obviously, the situation is complicated by the advent of the Israeli elections. None the less, I believe that there is a real will and sense in the international community that the issue of the middle east peace process has to be dealt with urgently. That was my position, and it remains my position.

Philip Hammond: The 1997 Labour manifesto said that the drugs tsar would be
	a symbol of
	Labour's
	commitment to tackle the modern menace of drugs.
	Can the Prime Minister tell the House what has happened to him and his targets?

Tony Blair: I can tell the hon. Gentleman that as a result of the extra finance that we are putting into drugs spending, the budget will increase from more than 1 billion to 1.5 billion. [Hon. Members: XWhat about the tsar?] One of the things that Keith Hellawell said, and one of the main targets that we had, was to increase the treatment of people for drugs, and that treatment has gone up by somewhere in the region of 10 per cent. under this Governmentand, as I say, all that investment is opposed by the hon. Gentleman.

Peter Kilfoyle: Does the Prime Minister accept the assessment of the intelligence service that whatever else Saddam Hussein is guilty of, he is almost certainly innocent of the charge of associating with al-Qaeda?

Tony Blair: What I have said is that we have no evidence directly linking the Iraqi regime to the attack on 11 September. That is true. I would also say, however, that I believe that the issues of weapons of mass destruction and international terrorism are linked indirectly. I believe, however, that unless we tackle that issue they will at some point be directly linked. The proliferation of weapons of mass destruction in the world today is a test for the United Nations and the world community. We have laid down a clear demand to the Iraqi regime. If we were to give up on that demand at this moment, that would have a serious impact on the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. As I said, that issue is linked indirectly to international terrorism at the moment, but I believe that it could be linked directly to international terrorism.

Peter Luff: Yesterdaynot a day too soonthe Home Secretary announced an expansion of drug services in the criminal justice system. Does the Prime Minister really think that that will help drug addicts in prisons who need help now, such as my constituent, Ben Launchbury, about whom I wrote to him on Monday? Is it right that Ben, who was sentenced to four and a half years for drug-related crime in February, should still be denied access to treatment for his heroin addiction 10 months later, apparently because he was moved from Gloucester prison to Manchester prison to deal with overcrowding? The Prison Service now says that it cannot afford to move a single prisoner to Channings Wood prison in Newton Abbott.

Tony Blair: As the hon. Gentleman said, he wrote to me about this case, and I shall certainly look into it for him. If the facts are as he described, however, it is not acceptable. That is precisely why we need extended rehabilitation programmes for prisoners on drugs. We also need to make sure that that treatment is available in the community. The point that I was trying to make earlier is that we are extending these programmes significantlydrug treatment in prison and drug treatment out of prisonbut there is a huge unmet need. It will take time, through the new National Treatment Agency, to provide treatment for all who need it, and it is very expensive treatment. I agree, however, that there is no point in having these people in prison on drugs and not giving them rehabilitation.

Tam Dalyell: On page 7 of yesterday's document on human rights in Iraq appears the statement that, for failing to qualify for a World cup football match, the Iraqi team were caned on the soles of their feet. As FIFA investigated this matter and on 4 November 1997 made a statement that there was no truth in it whatever, do the Government have better information on a footballing matter than FIFA?

Tony Blair: No, I would not say that we had better information than FIFA. But leaving aside that incident[Interruption.] There may be a disagreement between FIFA and the Government or the Iraqi authorities there. I ask my hon. Friend to focus on the human rights abuses in Iraq that are beyond doubt. A couple of days ago I met 10 Iraqi women, all of whom have suffered seeing their families disappear and their relatives tortured, and who are subject to death threats even now. The Iraqi football team may be one matter, but these human rights abuses are self-evident. No one who has talked to people who have lived through the regime of Saddam Hussein can dispute that it is an appalling, brutal and terrible regime.

Bob Russell: When the Prime Minister was still a lad, before his tuition-free days at university[Laughter.]was the Prime Minister then aware that the policies of real Labour Governments, and of one-nation Conservative Governments, had effectively ended homelessness in this country? In his current privileged position, is he aware that, after a quarter of a century of right-wing Governments, both Conservative and new Labour, we now have a housing crisis again? When will his Government do something to provide decent housing for homeless people, particularly for the underclass that has developed under new Labour?

Tony Blair: The problem with my university education was that it was indeed often tuition free. Again, homelessness requires substantial investment, and we are putting that investment in. There are still problems, particularly with the number of families needing accommodation in the south. However, there is no point in the hon. Gentleman saying that we are pursuing the same policies as the last Conservative Government. He knows that is not correct. We are putting a massive additional sum both into our public services generally and into housing in particular. It is probably never enoughand, frankly, it never is enough for the Liberal Democrats. In the end, it all has to be paid for, and I do not think that it is fair to say that we have done nothing. The hon. Gentleman will know, for example, that we have cut the number of rough sleepers by two-thirds.

BILL PRESENTED

Planning and Compulsory Purchase

Mr. Secretary Prescott, supported by the Prime Minister, Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Secretary Blunkett, Secretary Margaret Beckett, Mr. Secretary Darling, Mr. Secretary Milburn, Ms Secretary Hewitt, Mr. Secretary Clarke, Secretary Peter Hain, Ms Barbara Roche and Mr. Tony McNulty, presented a Bill to make provision relating to spatial development and town and country planning; compulsory acquisition for development; and loss payments in respect of certain interests in property compulsorily acquired. And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time tomorrow; and to be printed. Explanatory notes to be printed. [Bill 12].

Points of Order

Gwyneth Dunwoody: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. When you agreed on behalf of the House to the modernisation procedures, you were kind enough to say that you would protect the rights of individual Back Benchers, so that if written statements were made by Ministers you would expect them to be non-contentious in the way that they were presented. You may like to know that today, the Secretary of State for Transport has made a statement about the London underground. There are considerable economic and political reasons for that statement to be debated in the Chamber, as it includes the suggestion that the underground system will not now be handed over to Transport for London as quickly as possible. May I ask you to examine the way in which the matter has been handled, because, whatever the reasons for the decision, Members of Parliament have a right to question the Secretary of State about this contentious matter?

Mr. Speaker: My priority is that Ministers should inform the House. They have a choice and they can use their judgment. They may make oral or written statements. In this case, a written statement has been made, and there has been no infringement of the rules of the House.

Ann Widdecombe: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I am aware that you do not have any responsibility for the content of ministerial questions, but could I ask you to direct a slight frown of disapproval towards the Home Secretary? I tabled, with due notice, 15 questions on prison overcrowding and received an answer to precisely one.

Mr. Speaker: I think that the right hon. Lady meant to refer to ministerial answers, not to questions. I have said before that perseverance is important in the House. She should keep annoying the Home Secretary until she gets the answer that she wants.

Simon Hughes: Further to the point of order of the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe), Mr. Speaker. Will you consider a slightly wider issue that relates to today's business as well as the matter that the right hon. Lady raised? At the end of the last Session of Parliament, I tabled in due time a number of questions to the Home Office that were material to the matters coming up in the Bill that we are about to debate. Most of them received answers saying, XI will answer this as soon as possible, or Xshortly, or XI will write to the hon. Gentleman.
	I retabled the questions at the beginning of this Session. We have now had about a month of this Session, and yesterday I received a whole sheaf of answers saying, XI will write to the hon. Gentleman shortly. The questions are all material to the issues that we shall consider in today's debate.
	In addition to that, we had one week's delay in the publication of the explanatory notes to the flagship Bill of this Parliament, and we received today a written statement from the Home Secretarythe item appears on the Order Paperentitled XResponses to consultation exercise contained in the Criminal Justice White Paper. Many of us have pressed for answers and the statement tells us that answers to the consultation exercise will be published in the Library shortly.
	Can you help us, Mr. Speaker? Can we do our job of scrutinising the Government if they do not give us key material until after we have debated the legislation to which it relates? That is unacceptable.

Mr. Speaker: I say to the hon. Gentlemanthis may also help the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe)that the Public Administration Committee is prepared to look at any complaints from hon. Members. The hon. Gentleman may wish to take that course of action.

Ronnie Campbell: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I received a reply from a Health Minister yesterday in response to a constituent's query raised in April, seven months after the original complaint was made. Can you help Back Benchers to get Ministers and Departments to give an early reply, because it makes us look like fools?

Mr. Speaker: Seven months is an undue length of time. If the hon. Gentleman sends me the correspondence, I will look into the matter.

Orders of the Day
	  
	Criminal Justice Bill

[Relevant document: The Second Report from the Home Affairs Committee, Session 200203, on the Criminal Justice Bill (HC 83).]
	Order for Second Reading read.

David Blunkett: I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
	Before I begin my speech on this important measure, I want to pick up on the points of order raised by Opposition Members on questions that have not been answered. I instructed my Department that the consultation responses should be put in the Library today and I hope they are there this afternoon. However, I apologise unreservedly if Members who have laid questions that are relevant to the debate have not received substantive answers. That is not acceptable and should not have happened, and I will investigate it.
	Although I will address specific clauses so that hon. Members can reflect on those aspects that are most relevant to them and then intervene if they want to, I first want to place on the record my thanks, and I am sure those of the House, to John Halliday and Lord Justice Auld for the way in which they conducted their inquiries, which informed the White Paper of 17 July and the legislation. I thank the Law Commission for its work over a number of years which has also informed the Bill's content, along with Ministers from all three Departments that are concerned with criminal justice. I am pleased that they are represented in the Chamber today.
	I also want to thank those who contributed to the consultation on the White Paper. That was extremely helpful. In doing the same for the White Paper on sex offenders and sex offences, which we discussed a couple of weeks ago, we hope to engage Members more readily than appears to have been the case when we answered questions on the White Paper of 17 July.
	We have endeavoured to pull together a range of issues that are relevant to the reform and modernisation of the criminal justice system. We started in the first Parliament of this Government by introducing legislative measures that have laid the foundations for what we propose in the Bill. The Crime and Disorder Act 1998 has made a significant contribution, as I highlighted in our debate on the Queen's Speech. It is now absolutely clear that we need end-to-end reform of the criminal justice service and that that should fit with the other measures taken alongside it.
	The Police Reform Act 2002 has already started to make a difference to the ability of the police to deliver their significant contribution to improving the criminal justice service as a whole. The initiative on street crime has not only made a difference by reducing robbery and snatch theft; it has also helped us to determine in what circumstances Departments and agencies fail to work adequately and, more importantly, to work together. We were able to see when they were not co-ordinated acceptably at a local level, and any major inefficiencies. All those agencies have people who work hard at a local level. With the assistance of Ministers across Departments, we have seen a major difference. Importantly, we have also been able to bring that information and those insights to bear on the Bill.
	I want to make this offer, which I know the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, Central (Hilary Benn), and his colleagues serving on the Bill will want to proceed with: we are prepared to listen to those who have a major contribution to make to the Bill's improvement in Committee, in both this House and the House of Lords. We do not pretend to be the fount of all wisdom; we know that this is a complex and difficult area, and we know that proportionality is required. Although I have been and will continue to be extremely robust with vested interests, I recognise that there are voices of common sense who will guide us and help us to get this right.
	If the Crown Prosecution Service, the Lord Chancellor's Department and the Home Office are to be able to take forward broad-based reform that will stand the test of time and have the support of all those of good will from different political parties, it behoves us to continue listening and to recognise that we must underpin the measures in the Bill with preventive action, which is crucial if we are to avoid people entering the criminal justice system in the first place.

Several hon. Members: rose

David Blunkett: I hope that my offer is extremely popular. I am just working out which of the voices I should give way to. I thought that I heard the Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee, and I will give way to him.

Chris Mullin: I am grateful to the Home Secretary for giving way to one of the reasonable voices in the House. In the spirit of what he has just said, may I put it to him that our Committee and most of those who gave evidence to us think that this would be a far better Bill if it did not contain the provision for disclosure of previous convictions? I do not ask him now to give an undertaking on that point, but I hope that he will think very carefully about it before persisting.

David Blunkett: There are many safeguards built into that provision which we will come to as we proceed through the Bill, and I will be happy to give way to my hon. Friend again at that point. The Select Committee made suggestions on a range of issues which were very helpful to us, and I will be happy to consider them, as I have done with previous Bills. I shall give way to some of my hon. Friends, but I shall give way first to the lead spokesman for the Liberal Democrats.

Simon Hughes: I am grateful to the Home Secretary for the tone and content of his remarks so far. I want to ask him about one of the provisions on which there is potentially a dispute as to the principle but on which I hope we can achieve agreement.
	We are all united in our desire to increase support and protection for victims and witnessesI do not think that there is a dissenting voice in the House. However, does the Home Secretary accept that it is not a direct balancing operation to increase support and protection for witnesses and victims and to take away the rights of defendants? It is just as important that defendants, when they are in court, have protection as it is that victims and witnesses have protection when they are engaged in the criminal justice process.

David Blunkett: I entirely accept that. I have made the point in the House and elsewhere that this is not a zero sum game in which, if we enhance the rights of one set of people, we automatically diminish the rights of others. If we can approach the Bill in that spirit, we will achieve a degree of unity. I give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen).

Graham Allen: I thank the Home Secretary for his generous offer to improve the Bill in Committee. Will he comment on the fact that the Bill may be with us for 20-odd years but we could not find six weeks in which to perform even more thorough pre-legislative scrutiny? If we had done that online, it would have involved police officers, probation officers, court officials, victims and witnesses, who would have made a great contribution.
	I know that my right hon. Friend is constrained by the fact that the carry-over provision does not come into effect immediately, but will he undertake to ensure that any future Bills of this nature, which are very amenable to public participation, will go through full pre-legislative scrutiny, including online consultation to involve the public, who are so concerned about crime?

David Blunkett: In principle, the argument that where we can have pre-legislative scrutiny, we should, is unanswerable. I hope that the White Paper gave people an idea of our intentions and enabled them to respond. I know that many people have been debating these issues for a long time, but my hon. Friend's point is well taken. I shall give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Wyre (Mr. Dawson), and then I must make progress.

Hilton Dawson: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the Bill could be improved if we took the opportunity to draw a much clearer distinction between children and adults and set the defining age at 18 rather than 14, 16 or 17? Would that not help us to make a clearer and good response to last week's judicial review, which held that the Children Act 1989 should apply to under-18s in custody?

David Blunkett: We are all concerned to achieve substantial improvement in the juvenile estate. As the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, Central has said publicly, we shall introduce measures, not least in relation to the judgment given earlier this week. We are mindful about getting that right. It is important that we intervene at an earlier stage rather than rely on the correctional services to deal with youngsters. We have done important work in establishing the Youth Justice Board, and improvements in correctional services in recent years, if overdue, are extremely welcome.
	Departments and agencies, both locally and nationally, are working together on, for instance, Splash schemes and their related support services in Connexions, which made an enormous difference over the summer to the level of criminality. In street crime areas with preventive diversionary programmes, there was just over a 20 per cent. drop in recorded crime, compared with a 5 per cent. drop in similar areas without such programmes. There is a lot to learn from intervening at that stage, providing alternative activities and reducing opportunities for crime. I want to put that on record because criminal justice reforms tend to deal with the horse once it has bolted past the stable door. We need to make better progress on prevention in the first placethat is true of rehabilitation as well.
	We have done quite a lot with youth justice. Not only have we developed the Youth Justice Board, but we have fulfilled our pledge to halve the time it takes for young people to pass from arrest and to sentence. Initially we got that down to 71 days, but we have now got it down to 63 daysa tremendous improvement on the previous time. There has been a 14.6 per cent. reduction in reconviction rates for that age group in the new reformed system of youth justice. We have introduced intensive treatment and supervision orders and have done work on tagging and home detention curfews. We need to bear all those things in mind when considering what is possible and how we may achieve improvements.
	This afternoon, I appeal to people with a long-standing professional involvement and interest to play their part in making the Bill better and ensuring that the reforms are carried through. In the Queen's Speech debate, I said that the Law Society had been positive. When I addressed its annual conference, I was heartened by the way in which its members were committed to assisting us with reform. I again appeal to people inside the system to work with us, not against us, to ensure that we bring this programme into the 21st century, as it is important for the protection of the public and the credibility and standing of the criminal justice service as a whole. We should acknowledge that, together, we treasure our traditions. Some we will remember with nostalgia; others we will bring carefully from medieval England into the 21st century; all of them we will treat with care. I accept what has been said in the House on a number of occasionswe should change what exists with care.
	Not everyone agrees on the central objective of the criminal justice service. I believe that, above all, it is a search for truth. We are trying to get to the truth on behalf of victims and the wider community. Unless that objective is at the heart of the system, we shall never protect victims in future and will never have a culture in our communities that accepts that order and stability, as well as people's security in their homes and neighbourhoods, is the paramount job of any civilised Government.

Patrick McLoughlin: Serious cases of miscarriage of justice have done much to damage the criminal justice system. During consideration of the Bill, I ask the Home Secretary to examine the operation that was set up by the Derbyshire constabularyit was called Operation Noblein the reinvestigation of the Wendy Sewell murder, following the release of Stephen Downing about 27 years after being convicted, the conviction having been found unsafe by the Court of Appeal. Will the right hon. Gentleman take it from me that Operation Noble has been far sighted and has enabled the chief constable to reinvestigate a serious crime, involving all those who were concerned in the case? Operation Noble should be examined by other police forces throughout the country.

David Blunkett: We would all be pleased to learn lessons from that operation and to reflect on improvements. It is not often that I pay tribute to a measure was enacted under Baroness Thatcher's notorious reign.

Patrick McLoughlin: Go on.

David Blunkett: I will go on. I shall dip a toe in hot water. By 1984, it had been recognised by everyone that there were major problems. The Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 and the development of the PACE code since have been important and welcomed by everyone. We need to build upon that in a sensitive way. We are not sweeping that aside in introducing the Bill. We need to be able to enhance and modernise a learning experience over the past 18 years. I welcome the way in which the Derbyshire police have approached the Downing case.
	I was about to reflect on a point about protecting the public and getting the measure of what we are about in the Bill. There are those who have almost come to the conclusion that Parliament is a threat in terms of the way in which the judiciary works or in terms of the innocent fearing conviction. I do not believe that a democratically elected Parliament is a threat. I think that the threat lies with people committing crimes on our streets and in our homes. I believe that being able to hold us to account for what we do and to demand change from usthe public are able to expect us to deal with these issues, including sentencing policyare pluses in persuading people that democracy is worth sustaining, that Parliament is worth listening to and supporting, and that it is worth participating in our elections. If people believe that nothing can be changed, that nothing can be improved and that we must be hands off because we are frightened of dealing with these issues, and if they consequently turn away from our democracy and our Parliament, we shall all be the losers.

Bob Blizzard: I shall give my right hon. Friend an example from my constituency of a 19-year-old who is a persistent young offender. He had five previous convictions involving 11 offences. In May, he was fined 100 for burglary. In September, he was arrested for driving while disqualified and having no insurance. He was bailed and then arrested for the same sort of offence two days later. When he returned to court, he was given 100 hours of community punishment. Does not this sort of sentencing anger the victim, demoralise the police and undermine whatever confidence the public have in the criminal justice system? Will my right hon. Friend give me an assurance that the Bill will get to grips with that sort of sentencing?

David Blunkett: Yes. The extension of intensive supervision, the tagging measures, the provisions on bail that are crucial to credibility, will all make a substantial difference. It is regrettable that every hon. Member could give a similar example.
	Acquitting the innocent is critical; convicting the guilty is vital. I shall not use many soundbites in my speech, but ensuring that the scales of justice pass the trading standards test in the 21st century is important.

David Heathcoat-Amory: Will the Home Secretary give way?

David Blunkett: I am sorry to provoke more interventions, but I shall give way.

David Heathcoat-Amory: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving way with his usual courtesy. He spoke eloquently about the powers of the House to make changes. His proposals include removing the double jeopardy rule and providing for the retrial of serious offences. I oppose that change, but I agree that it should be a matter for the House. Why, then, have the Government signed up to the European Union charter of fundamental rights? Article 50 explicitly forbids retrial and protects the double jeopardy rule. Why do Ministers on the Convention on the Future of Europe argue for the charter to be made legally binding? That would undermine the House's discretion and its ability to make the changes that the Home Secretary advocates.

David Blunkett: I do not believe that the charter prevents that. I would be against signing into European statute or our laws anything that interferes with our rights. That is why I oppose a European public prosecutor and will argue vehemently against the extension of powers in the European Union that infringe our right to introduce measures such as those that we are debating.
	Some Members of the other place claim to be on my side but say the most extraordinary things. For example, they claim that the Bill was developed from a focus group. I am happy to plead guilty, because one focus group did influence me. It incorporates 82,000 men, women and children; I regret that not all of them were eligible to vote in the last general election, but they constitute the population of Sheffield, Brightside.
	Those who hold surgeries, are accountable to their electorate and receive representations day in, day out in correspondence to their constituency offices, have a different view from those who have never held a surgery, are accountable to no one and, in some cases, picture matters from a great distance. They may be travelling the world when events pervade our consciousness. I ask those who attack us day in, day out, on television, radio and in the press, as calmly and reasonably as I can, to return to the world in which we live and that our constituents inhabit.

Andrew Miller: Would my right hon. Friend include in his focus group my 83-year-old constituent who has been terrorised? Her windows have been shot at with air gun pellets, but the system has given her no support. Is not she a member of the sort of focus group to which we should listen?

David Blunkett: Yes. I hope that our debate on antisocial behaviour will be as sensible as this afternoon's discussion.
	Modernising and improving are a necessity and a promise, not a threat. I want to go through the aspects of the measure about which we agree and disagree. All three major parties as well as the minor parties agree on the bulk of the provisions. We will focus on some aspects that have received public attention, but I want to make it clear that the provisions that engender the greatest heat are not necessarily those that encapsulate the biggest changes.
	Some aspects of the Bill are controversial. Hon. Members will refer to that now, in Committee and in the House of Lords. However, many other provisions will be instrumental in massively improving the system, its timing, its sensitivity and its ability to respond to the needs of victims and witnesses.
	Parts 1 and 2 set out the reforms and modernisation of the codes established by the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984the PACE codesand of bail, in the context of the issue I mentioned earlier, and provide the opportunity to look at additional powers in the future. These measures are all intended to ensure that the police can do their job more effectively and, I hope, more fairly. Part 3 is about conditional cautions and about rehabilitation, diversion and proper enforcement measures, and the work of the Crown Prosecution Service. Part 4 deals with the relationship between the police and the CPS in relation to charging policy, and we are pleased that the experiments have been successful in developing a new role for the CPS in this area. I hope that it will work effectively in the future.
	Part 5 deals with disclosure. We are simply seeking to avoid any scope for abuse of the system, to ensure that information requirements for the defence are placed on a par with those of the prosecution, and to deal with the way in which witnesses can be protected, including ensuring that the development of knowledge about the list of expert witnesses on which the defence will draw will be available to the prosecution. My hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin), the Chair of the Select Committee on Home Affairs, has been very generous in not intervening on me yet, but I would like to refer to his input in this matter. The Committee made the suggestion that we might develop a code that could incorporate measures to offer protection if there were any suggestion of a defence witness being leant on in the intervening period. I am happy to give the assurance that we will be prepared, in Committee, to provide for a code.
	The way in which we are moving this afternoon, and will move in Committee, and the way in which the Home Affairs Committee dealt with the code's immediate lookit did not have a lot of time, but it has done its job very effectivelydemonstrate the way in which we might proceed in the future.

Chris Mullin: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that assurance. I think that it will resolve a problem. To make this measure effective, however, it will be necessary to ensure that defence witnesses whom the prosecution wish to contact should be interviewed only in the presence of a defence solicitor, and, preferably, that the interview should be recorded; otherwise, the measure will undoubtedly be abused.

David Blunkett: I am agreeing now that the code should cover those areas.

Chris Mullin: Thank you.

David Blunkett: I think that that will help us.

Andrew Turner: Does the Home Secretary accept that my focus groupor, certainly, some of the constituents in itare concerned about the other side of the coin, which is that the technical failure to disclose a single piece of evidence might invalidate a trial? Will he assure the House that there is no intention that that situation should arise unless a serious miscarriage of justice has followed?

David Blunkett: I think that trial judges would want to use common sense in those circumstances, and we would encourage them to do so. I am pleased that the hon. Gentleman agrees that we should be concerned with justice and seeking the truth, rather than with technical knockouts. I have said that before and I believe it very sincerely.
	Part 6 is about streamlining the process, cutting down on wasted time, and speeding up the way in which we operate the system. It is also about encouraging early pleas, to avoid the prevarication, the waste of enormous resources and the delays that not only inconvenience us and cost us dearly80 million, as has been mentioned in the House on a number of occasionsbut are detrimental to persuading witnesses to come forward and to stay in the system. I hope that we can all get this right. Part 7

Tony Banks: Will my right hon. Friend give way?

David Blunkett: Yes.

Tony Banks: I am sorry. I would have waited until my right hon. Friend had made his point on part 7. Obviously, schedule 22 is linked to that.
	Is my right hon. Friend fully satisfied that the proposed removal of the right of Members to refuse jury service does not conflict with the rights and privileges of the House? It has long been held that our duties in this place supersede the obligations of attendance in any other court. I must refer him to Holford's case of 1826 and the subsequent report of the Committee of Privileges. The Bill refers to rights that are very much attendant on the privileges of this place, so I hope that he has consulted on the matter. If not, perhaps he will consider doing so.

David Blunkett: I would not dismiss out of hand the point that my hon. Friend raises, but although it would be an interesting experience for the Home Secretary, it would not do us any harm to be exposed to the vagaries of what is going on in various services that we use, which is the case regularly in other areas of our lives. Wecertainly those of us who get a recessmight be able to serve on a jury.

Tony Banks: Ah! In the recess.

David Blunkett: Well, we may be able to defer to a point at which it becomes possible for us to perform such a service rather than refuse altogether. We need to examine the point with an eye to not avoiding what we ask of others. Of course, I suggest in the Bill that certain trials go on for so longwe will come to the relevant clauses under part 11 in a few momentsthat they bedevil people's lives generally. We would be as sympathetic to ourselves as we would be to them.
	I want to make a point on part 7. There has been a debate, not necessarily among Members of the House, but certainly elsewhereagain, I look across Central Lobbyas though we were introducing the previous mode of trial Bills and as though the 20,000 jury trials that were allegedly affected by those Bills will be affected by this Bill. Of course, we are giving people not only the right to opt for jury trial, as they do now, but the right to opt for a judge-only trial, which they do not have at the moment. We are giving people more rights, not taking them away.
	As for very difficult, prolonged and complex trialsserious frauds and complicated commercial caseswe estimate that there will probably be a maximum of about 100 a year. There will be more when people themselves have opted to go to trial. Roskill in 1986 and Sir Robin Auld made suggestions on serious fraud and what it means. It is worth reflecting for a second on what happened in the Maxwell trial: there were 131 working days in the first, and the second and third trials, which were scheduled, never took place. That followed 60 days of pre-trial work, which took up the jury's time.

David Winnick: Will my right hon. Friend give way?

David Blunkett: I will in two seconds. Let me take the point further. The trial judges were both concerned about the impact of that. In fact, the second trial judge made it absolutely clear that he believed that there was a major problem in terms of the jury in the first trial being able to assess the full weight of the evidence in that trial, because they were not able to hear the second and third trial evidence. They were unable to do so because, as the first trial judge said, they could not face the likelihood of those three lots of evidence being put together in one trial. It was unthinkable, he said, that it was possible for that to be done. That is why he separated matters into three different elements, two of which were never heard for the reasons that I have enunciated. Therefore, that is why the second trial judge recommended that such trials should in future be heard by a judge rather than by a jury.

David Winnick: Like most members of the Home Affairs Select Committee, I entirely accept that there is a strong argument for most serious fraud cases, of the kind referred to by my right hon. Friend, to be heard without a jury. There is, however, a worrytouched on by my right hon. Friendthat the Government want, or he as Home Secretary somehow wants, to weaken the jury system. I will not use the word Xundermine. Does my right hon. Friend accept that the jury system has served the country very welland long may it continue?

David Blunkett: Yes, I do accept thatwhich is precisely why I, along with the Lord Chancellor and the Attorney-General, decided not to pursue the proposals in the two mode of trial Bills.
	I will not take offence this afternoon, or Melanie Phillips and Anne McEvoy will have another go at me in the papers later this week. I would be really upset and it would really throw me. I would be timorous at the Dispatch Box. But it takes the biscuit that those who argued vehemently against those Bills cannot distinguish between this Bill and legislation that is no longer being presented to the House. I know that my hon. Friend is not one of those people; I just wanted to make the point, and I feel better for it.

Tom Levitt: Some of us, not least those who were on the Home Office team at the time, supported the mode of trial Bills. One reason for that was a wish to prevent abuse of the system whereby cases for which jury trial was not appropriate were referred to juries in an attempt to get someone off with a shorter sentence. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that although such measures are not being pursued in this Bill, it will be able to deal with some of the opportunities for abuse of the system by lawyers? Will he stress that the system exists to provide justice for victims, not justice for lawyers?

David Blunkett: Amen to that. Indeed, that is the thrust of what I am trying to do.
	I hope I have picked out the best parts of what was in other respects an excellent Bill from my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw). The aspects that gained it supportenunciated just now by my hon. Friendare precisely the aspects that I am supporting today. We are, for instance, extending the role of magistrates, ensuring that people can opt for jury trial and introducing measures to stop people from interfering technically with the process of seeking after truth.

Robert Marshall-Andrews: rose

Peter Lilley: rose

David Blunkett: I will give way two more times.

Robert Marshall-Andrews: As the Home Secretary knows, juries convict in 85 per cent. of serious fraud cases, or at any rate there are convictions in 85 per cent. of such cases. That is considerably above the norm. Does the Home Secretary accept what is the view of the vast majority of judges and lawyers in serious fraud trialsthat juries have no problem whatever in dealing with the matters put before them?

David Blunkett: It is not a question of whether we can immediately lever up the level of convictionalthough there are issues in regard to what cases are currently brought forward, under the current system, and how they are brought forward. That also involves the reforms that we seek to make, including reforms of the Serious Fraud Office. No, it is a question of what juries must face. I gave an example of that. If my hon. and learned Friend and others think that the Maxwell trial is not a good example, I am sure they will say so during the Bill's passage; but I believe that where there is a problem, we should try to address it. We must take into account complexity, the length of time involved in jury service, and the enormous burden placed on individuals who would not wish to serve on a jury in such circumstances. We must take account of those factors if we are aiming for justice.

Peter Lilley: The two Bills that the Home Secretary rightly discarded were justified by arguing that it was wrong in principle for the defendant to have the right to choose jury trial. Now he is saying that it is right in principle for the defendant to have the right to be tried not by jury, but by a judge. If that amounted to a change in his principles, I would be happy, but is it not a common feature that he and the Government favour only those measures that result in fewer jury trials?

David Blunkett: I shall turn the point around. If the right hon. Gentleman's argument concerns choice and I am providing greater choice, I can hardly be accused of doing something heinous. Either he is arguing for choice or he is not, and if he is, he can rejoice. I am obviously a convert to choice, so I had better plead guilty to that now to save the House a lot of time, and to save a lot of money in fees for lawyers representing my interests.
	Part 8 of the Bill is straightforward. It is concerned with the use of technology, and it brings us into the 21st century. Part 9 deals with prosecution appeals, and will enable, before and during trials, an appeal against a stop. Part 10 deals with double jeopardy. I know that controversy surrounds this issue, on which my party made a manifesto commitment, and that it will be argued closely. We believe that, given our approach and the safeguards that we have built in through the Crown Prosecution Service and the Appeal Court, it will be possible to find a way to implement this measure without denying rights.
	I am painfully aware that people are worried that publicity will make matters difficult for juries; however, we must trust them. They have to assess the evidence and the facts. These points are true of all trials. A lot of publicity surrounds high-profile trials in the first place, never mind those in which new DNA evidence and forensic evidence has come to light, and in which modern techniques make it possible to return to failed evidence. I believe that, if we are careful and the safeguards are right, we can trust the jury to get it right, and that we can trust the Appeal Court not to allow through the gateway presentations of evidence that do not stand up to scrutiny.

Helen Jones: All Members accept that double jeopardy must be handled very carefully and that appropriate safeguards must be put in place, but does my right hon. Friend recognise that concern nevertheless exists in the community that people are allowed to go free, even though new evidence points to their having committed a very serious offence? If there is to be confidence in the criminal justice system, there must be an assurance that, in such cases, the evidence will be weighed very carefully and that, if necessary, such people will face another trial.

David Blunkett: Yes, and I cannot but agree, because that is the thrust of this part of the Bill. My hon. Friend enables me to demonstrate that there are lawyers whom I like very much, and who are really good friends of mine.

John Bercow: Give her a job.

David Blunkett: I shall make representations on my hon. Friend's behalf.

Annabelle Ewing: rose

David Blunkett: We have started something now.

Annabelle Ewing: I thank the Home Secretary for giving way. He referred to the proposed reporting restrictions on retrials south of the border. Significant concerns have been expressed in Scotlandincluding by the fourth estateas to whether press-gagging orders made in England will be imposed on Scottish courts. If that is the purport of the Bill, does the Home Secretary accept that the best place to consider such significant changes to Scots law would be in the Scots Parliament, not in Westminster?

David Blunkett: I think that the Government should, with the Executive of the Scottish Parliament, seriously consider how to proceed. I should be happy to do that. I put my hands up and say, as I always do, that if I had a straight answer, I would give it.

Simon Hughes: The Home Secretary properly understands the difficulties that could arise with a retrial if press coverage of the first trial remains in the minds of a future jury. He knows too that there are wider concerns about the press coverage of trials the first time around, which begins from the moment a person is arrested. We can all think of such cases, without needing any reminder. Does the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues across Government have in hand any review of the way in which the press can at present get away with condemning people, in effect, from immediately after their arrest right through to the end of the trial? Is that an item on the agenda? It is a big concern across the country.

David Blunkett: I take the hon. Gentleman's point. The Attorney-General has warned the press about the matter, and he repeated the warning only recently. There have been causes celebres in which press coverage has made it very difficult to pursue a trial properly. I am sure that that has been inadvertent, but it is also inept. I have in mind an example of that. We need to be mindful of the problem.
	The hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes) raised a substantive point at the beginning of his question. The difficulty that he described arises when a trial moves from one court to another. Judges must bear in mind the influences affecting the case.
	There is a myth about judges' lives, but I shall be careful about how I phrase what I want to say. There are people who sometimes suggest, mischievously, that judges live in a cocoon, a different world. I am not one of them, as I believe that judges could be influenced, if they were not careful, by what they read and heard. They steel themselves against that possibility and are able to accept the facts as they are presented. They make a judgment on the basis of the facts, and advise juries to do the same. They would advise retrial juries in the same manner, and we trust jurieswe have all just agreed that we doto judge according to the facts.

Robert Marshall-Andrews: Will the Home Secretary give way again?

David Blunkett: I will give way one more time to my hon. and learned Friend, as a generous gesture to someone who took the trouble to table an amendment against giving the Bill a Second Reading.

Robert Marshall-Andrews: I am very grateful to the Home Secretary. May I say straight away that I do not want to attempt to inveigle myself into the category of lawyer that he mentioned a little while ago? I know that I certainly will not so inveigle myself.
	Will the Home Secretary accept that many people are worried about the double jeopardy proposals? Their concern arises not from some liberal adherence to the rights of defendants, but from the fact that double jeopardy is the primary rule that discourages rotten policing. If a witness simply fails to come forwardand there has been a topical example of that recentlywill that be sufficient grounds for an application to reopen a prosecution?

David Blunkett: The Attorney-General and the Appeal Court will assess whether there is clear and compelling new evidence in a case. That double-locked gateway will mean that the situation outlined by my hon. and learned Friend will not arise. However, I will make representations on his behalf as well in the future, although they might not be quite the same as the representations on behalf of my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington, North (Helen Jones).

John Burnett: The Law Commission's report into double jeopardy made it clear that cases should be retried only when evidence did not become available until after the original acquittal. Does the Home Secretary agree?

David Blunkett: Evidence that is clear, compelling and, in particular, new falls into that category. I am concerned with the word Xnew. No new evidence would have been available at the original trial.

Ann Widdecombe: Will the Home Secretary give way?

David Blunkett: I will, as I love the right hon. Lady and I want her to sharpen her teeth for future work on the Select Committee on Home Affairs.

Ann Widdecombe: I am very grateful to the Home Secretary for giving way. I invite him to draw a distinction between Xnew and the phrase Xcould not possibly have been available. If, for example, the new evidence is a scientific advance such as DNA, which simply could not have been applied before its discovery, that new evidence could not possibly have been available at the trial. However, if new evidence is brought that was not available but, with more diligent policing could have been, there is a distinction between the two. I am sympathetic to these aims, and I think that the right hon. Gentleman is being invited to make that distinction.

David Blunkett: I knew that it was a good idea to give way because I do not disagree with the right hon. Lady. I do not believe that we would want failure of the investigation to be used and I do not believe that the Court of Appeal would allow it to be used. I did not respond by acknowledging that a witness failing to come forward would not, in any circumstances, be likely to be agreed by the Attorney-General and the Court of Appeal for this reason: even with the internet, mobile phones and satellite television, someone could return from abroad who could not be interviewed at the time as opposed to not being interviewed because of failure. That is why I was not definitive on the example that was given. It is important that we allow the Attorney-General and the Court of Appeal to do their job, within the parameters of this afternoon's debate and the assurance that I hope I have given, that failure of investigationincompetence, in other wordsshould not be the test. I shall turn now to part 11 because I am sure that we will come back to these issues in Committee, on Report and beyond.
	Chapter 1 of part 11 is about relevant evidence and bad character. Chapter 2 is about reported evidence, material in writing, previous statements being available and witnesses being able to use their statements rather than simply testing their good memory, parrot-fashion. Chapter 3 refers to miscellaneous matters.
	We believe that if we are careful and proportionate, we will get this right. We believe that in recommending that we should ensure that when a husband is accused of battery or rape and the defence is that he has been sweetness and light to his wife, the evidence available, including arrest or conviction, should be relevant. That is an extension of and consistence in applying what the Law Commission recommended and, to a moderate degree, what is already practised but is spasmodic and inconsistent in its application.
	Part 12 is about sentencing and part 13 covers miscellaneous activity.

Gordon Prentice: I am not a lawyer, but am I the only person who is astonished at the sentences that are handed down to people who pervert the criminal justice system by deliberately lying to courts? The maximum sentence for perjury is seven years. Does anything in the Bill offer advice to the courts as to the appropriateness of sentences that allow people who have perjured themselves to go to an open prison with days off to go to the pub and make social visits miles and miles away from their prison? It is a serious point.

David Blunkett: I am pleased to have given my hon. Friend the opportunity to make his point but I shall not be drawn into discussing it this afternoon, partly because it is not directly relevant to the Bill and partly because recently more heat than light has been shed on the issue.

Michael Jack: In paragraph 653, on page 133 of the explanatory notes kindly provided with the Bill, reference is made to the extra pressure on and costs for the Prison Service both of the measures to which the Home Secretary has already referred and those to which I think that he is about to refer. Can he reassure me that resources will be available to deal with those pressures? Secondly, will he address the question raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) during Prime Minister's questions, when she rightly referred to the overall pressure on prison places? Thirdly, will the right hon. Gentleman assure me that resources will be devoted to dealing with the problem of recidivism? Every provision in the Bill will be as nought if we do not stop people going back into prison because they have reoffended.

David Blunkett: We agree wholeheartedly about positive action in relation to rehabilitation and the avoidance of reoffending. Yesterday, we were dealing with a revised report and recommendations on the relationship between drug addiction and the criminal justice system. That is part of the preventive process, as are the signals that the measure will send out on the sentencing of recidivists.
	The right hon. Gentleman asked about resources. Yes, measures are being taken in respect of the probation service. There has been enormous investmenta 50 per cent. increaseas well as the new spending since 1998. The national probation service was established and commenced a year ago last April. In our first Parliament, there was a 20 per cent. increase in prison places and 2,300 extra places were agreed in the Budget last April. Extra money has been agreed for an additional 750 places next year, so there will be more than 3,000 extra places. As part of next year's spending increase, we have just agreed that there will be 275 million for the Prison Service for improvements and extra places. There will be 70 million for the probation service.
	Of course, we face a challenge. In the long term, some measures will increase pressure on both services. The custody minus proposals, which are close to my heart because I invented them, will, I hope, provide a clear signal to people not to reoffend because if they do, they will immediately go to prison. People will also have an opportunity to redeem themselves because under the proposals they will not be sent to prison immediately for a first offence or for an offence that should be dealt with in the community.
	We should all agree about that because, as I have said before, we should send people to prison only as a last resort. The proposals will help to put the sense back into sentences.

John Bercow: Will the Home Secretary give way?

David Blunkett: In a moment.
	I want to deal with a misunderstanding. The words Xmixed message have replaced Xspin and Xcommand and centralisation as the latest mantra and are supposed to be opposite to centralised diktatthe predetermined spin on the pager. Recently, I have met judges who cannot understand the difference between a clear message that violent, dangerous sex offenders will be sent down for longer, supervised more intensively for longer, and that for the most heinous offences life will mean life, and the fact that for first time, lesser offences we shall try to redeem the situation immediately by giving people intensive supervision in community sentences, as well as making reparation to victims.

David Winnick: rose

David Blunkett: I shall give way first to the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) and then to my hon. Friend.

John Bercow: Given that schedule 20 provides for an increase in penalties for drug-related offences, will the Home Secretary confirm whether he stands by his statement to the House in July of this year that cannabis will be reclassified from a class B drug to a class C drug by July of next year? In the process of confirming that, what would he say to Roger Howard, the chief executive of DrugScope, who says that, far from saving police time and producing a more logical drugs policy, the law that the right hon. Gentleman proposes will, in fact, make things more severe and confused than they were previously?

David Blunkett: No, I do not accept that aspect of what DrugScope has said because the residual powers of arrest remain to avoid public order disturbance, to avoid young people being enticed into drug taking and to avoid people trying to evade being picked up as dealers by pretending that they are merely users.
	Guidance will be provided through the chief constables to make the position absolutely clear at the beginning of next year, in good time for the new measure to take effect, in the same way as we would expect to do with other class C illegal drugs if they were being used in a way that made nonsense of the law and a monkey of the police. Some people are prepared to do that, and we do not want to stand by and let them do it.

David Winnick: Public anxiety is arising from the decision of the courts that they, not the Home Secretary, can decide whether someone who has been sentenced to life imprisonment should be released. I am sure that he thoroughly agrees that there are those who have been convicted who should never be released under any circumstances, so is there any way in which he can assure the publicnot all these cases are high profile by any meansthat those who should not be released under any circumstances will not be?

David Blunkett: Yes, I agree. That is why there is the new role for Parliament in lesser offences through the establishment of the sentencing guidelines council. I hope that the influence of Parliament will be expressed through the Select Committee on Home Affairs. We are talking about the Lord Chancellor, in consultation with the Home Secretary, determining the exact avenue.
	I am recommending that the Select Committee on Home Affairs should have a role for the first time in response to the Anderson judgment to set up a framework, determined by Parliament, in which principles will be laid down. Judges will use discretion within that framework and those principles, which will ensure that life means life when we say it does and that the most heinous crimes are dealt with properly.
	As the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) will know from her time in the Home OfficeI think that we agree on thisit is not always the high-profile cases where tariffs are set. I rarely speak about these matters, but let me say very clearly that I have dealt with cases where my staff have wept when reading on to cassette for me what has been done to children and other human beings by the scum of the earth who should never leave prison. If we get that right, the public might have greater faith in usthey rely on usand in the judicial system to protect them and to use what all the rest of us would call decent common sense. That is not vindictiveness; we are laying down for the first time ever the particular objectives of sentencing.
	We talk about punishment, protection, reducing crime, reparations and, of course, rehabilitation, so we are laying down new guidance on why we are doing things. Through the sentencing guidelines council and Parliament's new influence we are laying down the new the ways in which we are trying to make sense of sentencing. In the framework and principles, we are laying down how to deal with cases and principles, as with the Anderson judgement. Of course, we have a new range of sentences: the intermittent sentence, which will help at the lower end, and the indeterminate sentence, which will help at the upper end, with intensive supervision and with the requirement that people should not be released at the upper end unless it is safe to do so.

Oliver Letwin: I am not clear. Is the Home Secretary signalling that the Government's legislative solution to the problem posed by the Anderson judgment will be entered as amendments to the Bill, or will it be in separate legislation?

David Blunkett: The right hon. Gentleman rightly pulls me up. I should have saidI was responding to my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, North (David Winnick) at the timethat we will bring forward amendments to the Bill and seek to give the official Opposition as much notice as possible of the detail. I have asked for that to be done as quickly as possible. Clearly, I will inform the Committee of that, and I will be happy to hear views in response. Clearly, on this occasion, we are all dealing as quickly as we canit is not a failure of desirewith the consequences of that judgment. I have clearance to make sure that we can do that in this Bill. People will want that, not least because we want those who would otherwise seek to have their tariff readjusted to know that that will not happen outside the parameters of the new legislation. Their appeal will not be heard therefore until the legislation, in whatever form the House agrees it, has been passed. It will be judged within the new framework and the new guidance. I hope that that helps the House to understand the process by which we intend to proceed.
	I think that I have spoken for too long.

Elfyn Llwyd: I am encouraged by what the Home Secretary said about prison being the last resort and the need for further use of constructive community penalties. Does he share the view of Professor Rod Morgan that there is a danger that the lower courts are using community penalties far too often when a fine would suffice?

David Blunkett: Yes, I do agree with that. The Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), has taken decisive steps, and I very much welcome what she has done. We really need to make sure that we collect the fines when they are levied. When we say that there is a punishment, people must know that it happens. That is true of a number of issues dealt with in the Bill. The House will be unanimous in its views on the punishment fitting the crime, punishment being applied and commitment to enforcement. The court system, the Crown Prosecution Service, the Lord Chancellor's Department and the Home Office are committed to making enforcement work. Nothing is more likely to undermine confidence in the service as a whole and to send the wrong signal, particularly to young people creating mayhem on our streets and our estates, than the belief that there is no enforcement behind the law that we claim exists to put our streets in order, to ensure stability and security and to give confidence to our citizenry. We are all in favour of that. What we seek to do in the Billit is a partial step, as legislation alone will not make it workis to provide the tools to those inside the service and throughout the court system, including the police, to ensure that people can at last have confidence that when we say it, we mean it, and, when we mean it, someone will do something about it.

Oliver Letwin: We are at the beginning of what I suspect will be a long series of debates in this House and in the other place. The Home Secretary has laid out his position in some detail and at lengthI do not criticise that; he was generous in giving way for many questions, which was worth while. It is therefore right that I should be relatively brief.
	I want to set out our views about the generality of the Bill and to talk about the extent to which legislation is used and, by contrast, the extent to which it may be valuable to concentrate on administration. I also want to tackle the controversial elements that the Home Secretary mentioned: trial by jury, double jeopardy and the character of the defendant. Finally, I shall say a few words about what I understand to be the role of the Oppositionindeed, the oppositionsin this matter.
	I have frequently debated issues relating to the generality of the Bill with the Home Secretary and Lord Falconer during statements to the House or in public. We support the general principle of reform of the criminal justice system. When I went to wash my hands before the debate, I was privileged to find an item in the gentlemen's cloakroom in the Lobby.

John Bercow: Give us the details.

Oliver Letwin: I shall give my hon. Friend the details. I found a small rag, posing as something to wash one's hands on. A pink slip placed on it said that it was Xin need of repair. I thought that that was an apt analogy for the criminal justice system, and we agree with the Home Secretary that repairs are required. [Interruption.] I shall return the object in question after the debate. I need hardly fear that, if I were arrested, any fine against me would be enforced.
	Measures such as the creation of the Sentencing Guidelines Council and the making of that council answerable in some form to the House and to Parliament are admirable. They are among many such admirable measures in the Bill. I have repeatedly said that the time is long overdue for the progressive codification of sentencing, of the procedures for the giving of evidence and of the procedures for the holding of trials. There is no doubt that the criminal justice system does not command the confidence of the ordinary public, victims, witnesses or, indeed, the professionals that it should command. All that argues for legislation, much of which is helpfully introduced in the Bill.
	As I have frequently remarked in the past, this is not the first Criminal Justice Bill to come before the House in recent times. There is no reason to suppose that, alas, it will be the last. Legislation is not easy; it is arduous. However, it is easier than something else, and that something else is the improvement of the administrative systems that make the legislation live in practice.
	There has just been some discussion of the enforcementor rather the almost complete lack of enforcementin some jurisdictions of fines. However, I draw the House's attention to a separate and parallel topic. Some years ago, the House passed the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, and one of its effects was to require a custody sergeant to be present in the custody suite. When a police constable brought into the station someone who had been arrested, the Act also required the custody sergeant to interview both the constable and the person arrested.
	I am sure that the Home Secretary and his colleagues in the Home Office will have had the same experience that I have had in the past year. I have repeatedly been around the police stations of this country and talked to police constables and asked them how they spend their timevery often, their nightswhen they are on duty. I am repeatedly told that they spend two, three or four hours queuing outside the custody suite of their own police station because there is a logjam with only one sergeant in the suite. I am told that they sometimes have to take the prisoner in a carand with a colleague, if that is necessary for safety purposesto a station further afield to book him in. I do not have, and I understand from unofficial contacts that the Home Secretary does not have, accurate statistics on what proportion of police time is occupied in that fruitless endeavour.
	The example is non-partisan. The Police and Criminal Evidence Act was not the fault, so to speak, of the Home Secretary or his predecessor. On the whole, it is an admirable Act. Indeed, it happens to be a Conservative Act. However, it is a fact that it is allied to a failure of administrationnot just in one police force or police station, but across the police stations of England and Walesthat is significantly diminishing the ability of an already overstretched police force to apprehend criminals.
	I have frequently said that the bulk of the problem of our population's failure of confidence, which is very real, in the criminal justice system arises not from the failure of the criminal justice system to convict, but from the failure to apprehend criminals in the first place. Judging by statistics in the British crime survey, which for various reasons understates crime such as retail crime and crime against the young, the likelihood of not being apprehended, let alone convicted, exceeds 80 per cent. When a criminal knows that his chance of not being apprehended is enormous, the idea that criminal justice is an effective system is risible. The problem that confronts us is clearly administrative. I suspect that no amount of additional legislation will cure the deficiency. I do not want, and I am sure the Home Secretary does not want, to abolish the PACE rules, but we need to find a way to address the administrative deficiency that causes people to queue outside the custody suite.
	I have chosen just one example of the problem, and I recognise the great difficulty of achieving such an administrative change. The Home Secretary will no doubt taunt me with the fact that I am against centralised control and ask me how I can ask him to do something about it given that he is not in charge of each chief constable, but we need systems that impose pressures on chief constables and police forces in ways that make for sustainable improved administration. We do not have those at the moment.
	I do not want to deal with those elements that may provoke detailed consideration in Committee and on which we are broadly agreed. Instead, I want to discuss the controversial elements that will occupy most of the public's attention and most of the time of the House and, perhaps more importantly, of another place.
	On trial by jury, I recognise that part 7 does not contain the same measures as those proposed in the draft mode of trial Bill. For that we are truly grateful. I also recognise that some aspects of part 7 are carefully calculated to be minimally objectionable. For example, clause 36, which gives a defendant the right to choose his or her mode of trial under certain circumstances, has been constructed to be minimally objectionable.
	Given that the Government have rightly abandoned the mode of trial Bill, and given their desire to be minimally objectionable, why do we need to address trial by jury at all? What is the advantage of so doing and, balancing that, what are the risks attendant in so doing? I do not see the issue as black and white and utterly binary. There may be advantages and risks, and those need to be balanced. I have searched with my colleagues on the Front-Bench team and others, who are learned in such matters, to understand what the great gain is anticipated to be from addressing trial by jury.
	The hon. and learned Member for Medway (Mr. Marshall-Andrews) pointed out that the proportion of convictions by juries in serious fraud cases is approximately 85 per cent. I had thought the figure to be 83 per cent. That does not indicate any failure of the system to be able to bring the guilty face to face with their guilt, and I am in no way clear as to how the choice by the defendant of trial by judge rather than by jury under clause 36 will effect great improvement in the criminal justice system. We wait to hear the arguments that may be deployed in Committee and on Report by Ministers to defend the proposition that there will be a great gain in that department, and the same is true of the other clauses in part 7. However, against any such advantageswhich, as I said, at the moment I cannot see to be very greatwe must set out the danger.

Stephen Hesford: Is the right hon. Gentleman saying on behalf of the Conservative party that, as a matter of principle, the tribunals that may try serious fraud cases and the like are incapable of delivering justice? Does he object in principle to that new procedure, which will, as the Home Secretary has said, remove from juries the burden of trying massive fraud cases?

Oliver Letwin: I am not saying that a new tribunal would be incapable of delivering justice. How should I know? It may be that such a tribunal would be capable of delivering justice; that is not the question that the House needs to address. The House needs to address the question that I am trying to address: is there such an advantage in moving away from a system that has served us a very long time as to justify that move in the light of any disadvantages?
	I have asked, and we may hear from Ministers, what great advantages attend. In circumstances where there may be inconveniences for juries, but where juries have repeatedly shown themselves to be capable of understanding fraud trials and of convicting in such trialsindeed, they are more capable of convicting in fraud trials than in othersI do not yet see the force of an argument that starts from the presumption that there is a vast advantage. But is there a great disadvantage? It has to be admitted that the disadvantages to the propositions in part 7 are by no means so great as the disadvantages to the mode of trial Bill. I accept that wholeheartedly. However, I still worry greatly about these measures.
	I harbour the thought, and I hope that it is not unworthy, that the Lord Chancellor, like some others, maintains scepticism about the validity of amateurs. He demonstrates that in his attitude to the lay magistracy, a feature of the British justice scheme that has long served us and is now dwindling fast. He demonstrates it also, I fear, in relation to juries. If this House and the other place eventually permit the Government to legislate as they intend in part 7, will we not be laying the ground for precedents that will later be used gradually to erode the scope for trial by jury and to enlarge the scope for trial by judge?
	I know from long and bitter experience in dealing with matters European that whenever one uses the argument of the slippery slope, one is told that one is being unnecessarily alarmist and it is pointed out that the measure in question is slight. It is argued that no precedent can be taken from the slight to the major. It is pointed out that the measure that is before us, such as the Single European Act in place of the draft treaty of union, is nugatory in comparison with the horrors that might have been visited on us.
	That structure of argument is familiar to all of us who witnessed that debate. Here we move to different terrain, but I fear that the structure of argument will be the same. I am sure that, as we pursue this issue through this House and the other place, we will be told that we need not fear because these measures are in themselves unobjectionable and no precedent will be set. However, I think that a precedent will be set, and I fear that precedent.

John Bercow: I strongly agree with my right hon. Friend about trial by jury. I am not a lawyerI say that as a matter of prideand my exegesis of clause 36 may be flawed. However, whatever the other arguments about the clause, there is a danger that the Government may inadvertently create new confusion and complexity in subsection (6), which appears to suggest that people who have held office or employment in the administration of the civil or criminal justice system will be denied the right afforded to others to seek a trial without a jury. What is the reason for that?

Oliver Letwin: It is delightful that my hon. Friend, whose Buckingham constituency lies close to Beaconsfield, by telepathy understands the very points that my hon. Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve) has been making about clause 36 to me for the past few weeks. The clause is indeed inelegant, but I do not want to dwell on that unduly. In response to my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow), we do not know why that inelegant structure is there.

Andrew Miller: As another non-lawyer, may I put the reverse argument to the right hon. Gentleman? In my constituency, a large sum of money disappeared from a pension fund. The police, looking at a chart as big as the Table in the Chamber, eventually told me, XIf it's legal, why aren't we all doing it? They then concluded that there was not sufficient evidence to convince a jury. Either it is legal and we should all be doing it, or it is not legal and the current system for bringing such cases to justice is inadequate.

Oliver Letwin: My response is, XWhat has that got to do with the price of eggs?

Andrew Miller: Tell that to my constituents who lost their pension fund.

Oliver Letwin: The hon. Gentleman misunderstands me. If there was not enough evidence to convince a jury, that is an extremely good reason for the police and the Crown Prosecution Service not to bring a prosecution. On the whole, I agree with the old-fashioned concept that convincing juries of guilt is an extremely important part of the criminal justice system.

Simon Hughes: May I make one final point on this issue? Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that one criticism of some charges being tried in judge-only trials and others in jury trials is that that would create a two-tier justice system? If someone were charged with serious fraud or another offence specified in the Bill, they could be convicted by a judge, not the larger population. A different view would be taken of sentencing, and the public confidence that stems from people like us or members of the wider public serving on juries would be lost. For the first time, not at the defendant's instigation, a judge alone would judge guilt and innocence in the most serious cases in the land.

Oliver Letwin: I agree.

David Blunkett: If the right hon. Gentleman does agree, that puts the stipendiary magistrates and the higher courts in an interesting position. They do not just confirm sentencingsometimes they make that judgment. By agreeing with his friend, the Liberal Democrat spokesman, the right hon. Gentleman is going down a very dangerous avenue indeed.

Oliver Letwin: That is interestingI think that the Home Secretary is going down a dangerous avenue. Stipendiary magistrates, he will recall, no longer exist.

David Blunkett: They are district judges.

Oliver Letwin: Indeed, I do not quibble about that. They are now district judges because the Lord Chancellor is keen to replace people whom he apparently considers dreadful amateurs with serious professionals who will be efficient district judges. Let us call them district judges and let us have efficiency by all means. Let us have them concentrated in great centres. No more rural courthouses staffed by amateursthey are to be replaced by large, centralised courthouses staffed by serious professionals: district judges. I have nothing against district judges; indeed, my hon. Friend the Member for Woking (Mr. Malins) is a district judge. However, I believe that the amateur has a great role to play.
	In addition to agreeing with the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes), I fear that a precedent will be set and what will happen next is that those like the Lord Chancellor who fear the amateur will argue that efficiency has improved and that we should slightly widen the scope. So, by slow degrees over the next decade or so, we will find those of like mind persuading us that the jury system is actually old hat. I hear the word XmodernisationI hear it loudly ringing in my ears, and I fear it in this context.

Ann Widdecombe: Does my right hon. Friend accept that there is another dimension? By and large, juries are anonymousno one knows exactly who has sat on a jury. When there is a very big and controversial case, where there may be a great deal of public and tabloid pressure for a particular outcome, at least with a jury there is no individual pressure inasmuch as someone will have to answer to the public afterwards. A judge, of course, is fully identifiable. Could this be just the first stepI hate to use this phraseon a rather slippery slope towards politicisation of the judiciary?

Oliver Letwin: First, my right hon. Friend, as so often, makes a very telling point with which I wholeheartedly agree. Secondly, the fears that she raisesalthough I will not go into them in great detail now for obvious reasonsrange far more widely. The pressures leading to the politicisation of the judiciary from the scope of action given through the Human Rights Act 1998 and a wide range of international agreements, to the extent that we see in the Anderson judgment, is leading towards calls for parliamentary scrutiny or even election of judges. I fear the whole trend of thought that we see before us today in the British judicial system.
	I am unashamed in wishing to defend the principle of trial by jury, even against slight inroads that may in themselves appear relatively unobjectionable.

Stephen Hesford: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman, who is generous in giving way for a second time. What does he say about clause 38 and the problems with jury tampering in respect of safeguarding the rights of victims in serious gangster crime, when jury nobbling in some parts of London is rife?

Oliver Letwin: We have very seriously considered that matter. It is the most serious accusation that can be made against the jury system in a given case. At present, juries are heavily protected when there is tampering. I am open to persuasion, as we move through the Committee stage, that we have not fully grasped the situation. However, we have considered whether there is evidence available that after the trial jurors who have convicted someonebut were protected during the trial because of tamperinghave been subject to pressure, or worse. Were that to be proven on a significant scale, I would accept that it would constitute a significant argument for clause 38. I am not aware of such evidence at present. If the jury is adequately protected during the trial, and if there is no substantial evidence of jurors after the trial being subject to intimidation, and if jurors know that that is the currently the positionall of which are empirical points that can be verified by further investigationthe argument becomes very weak.
	I can go further. The structure of clause 38 illustrates well the fears that I am expressing. As I understand the provision, it will be open to the prosecution to move to remove the jury and replace it with a judge, not in cases of tampering but in cases where it is alleged that tampering may occur. The scope is therefore wide. I do not suggest that the prosecution service, the barristers that it employs or the police are ill disposed; they are all trying to do their job. However, their job is, properly, to convict speedily. In some cases, they may perceive that it would be easier to convince a judge than a jury, and there could be a temptation to allege that jury tampering might occur. It will be difficult to be sure that that does not become general practice. That is the slippery slope.

Robert Marshall-Andrews: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that one of the main strengths of the jury system is that it is almost impossible to corrupt a jury? It has been proved time and again that 12 jurors are infinitely more powerful than one judge. If there is an allegation of jury tampering, and the judge hears it and receives evidence in secret under public interest immunity rules, he could not in any circumstances go on to try the case. Has the right hon. Gentleman considered that?

Oliver Letwin: We have been discussing that internally.
	There will be much more debate in Committee, on Report and in another place, but today's early discussion has already revealed the considerable doubts that must be harboured about part 7. My hon. Friends and I will take a great deal of persuading about it.
	Interventions from Conservative Members were not confined to my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham, who might be regarded as a louche moderniser. [Interruption.] He is also an old friend. They included contributions from my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe).

Ann Widdecombe: I am not a moderniser.

Oliver Letwin: I was about to observe that my right hon. Friend is not typically regarded as being on the side of the criminal or uninterested in obtaining justice. She is not perceived as being unconcerned with victims and witnesses. Indeed, a large part of her political career has been devoted to precisely those causes. We do not need to be bullied into accepting provisions that may set dangerous precedents, by accusations that we are lily-livered or on the side of the criminal. We are not. However, in the memorable words of the hon. and learned Member for Medway at Prime Minister's questions today, it is not always necessary in pursuit of apprehending the wicked to sacrifice liberties that are of great value to the nation.
	Let us consider double jeopardy. I accept that there is a genuine case for some change in the rules on double jeopardy in some circumstances. I know that some of my hon. Friends and some Labour Members do not accept that. My right hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald, who has been a strong proponent of such changes in the past, made the salient point that the definitions of, for example, new evidence, are critical. However, as the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes), who speaks for the Liberal Democrats, rightly pointed out that, beyond that there is a considerable and justified anxiety that, without great safeguards, the second trial may not start with the presumption of innocence. I accept that there is a certain unfairness in the logic here. It was partly, I suspect, because of pressure from myself and my hon. Friendsand, indeed, from the Liberal Democratsthat the Home Secretary carefully and rightly concocted the clauses in question to provide the safeguard that the Court of Appeal must judge that there is clear and compelling evidence, and that is welcome.
	With a certain irony, however, that creates its own problem. If the Court of Appeal has judged that there is clear and compelling evidence, it is difficult to see how that, if it is known to a jury, ceases to be a reason for starting with a presumption of guilt. If I know that the Court of Appeal has ruled that a defendant has against him clear and compelling evidence, how can I start with the presumption that he is innocent? I will go further in my tribute to the Home Secretary and his colleagues, because they have alsoagain, perhaps as a result of conversations that we have hadtaken care, rightly, to build in reporting restrictions.
	That is welcome, and it helps to redress the problem. I am not convinced, however, that there are yet complete safeguards. Certainly, the amendment that my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald suggested in relation to the character of the new evidence required would address the point made by the hon. and learned Member for Medway that we need to be sure that the changes would not induce sloppy policing in the hope of a second trial. I think that there is common ground between us on that subject.
	Beyond that, we shall want to consider carefully in Committee how we can build sufficient safeguards in to the clauses to ensure that there is a presumption of innocence. We may part company at that point from the Liberal Democrats, who may object in principle to double jeopardy. I respect that position, but it is not ours. Ours is a balanced position on double jeopardy. We accept the basis for change, but only if the safeguards can be very robust.

Desmond Turner: Surely the effect on the presumption of innocence if new evidence is declared significant is no different from the presumption of innocence at the beginning of the first trial. The first trial would not have been brought unless the prosecution felt that it had compelling evidence, so I cannot really see the difference.

Oliver Letwin: Seeing the difference depends on the beholder as well as on the thing seen. Let me try to convey to the hon. Gentleman how this looks from my perspective. If I were a juror and I knew that a prosecution barrister, whose job it is to prosecuteguided by the CPS, whose job it is to prepare prosecutionsand the police, whose job it is to get prosecutions to succeed, were all alleging that the defendant was guilty, I would regard that as part of the ordinary course of business. That is, after all, those people's job. I would, I hope, start with the presumption that they were wrong, and try to ensure that they had proved to me beyond all reasonable doubt that they were right.
	If, however, there were added to the mixture the observation that the second most senior set of judges in the kingdom had considered the case at great length, in the light of prolonged further investigations, and had already adjudicated that there was clear and compelling evidence, I think that it would be more difficultalthough not absolutely impossibleto start with a presumption of innocence. To my mind, therefore, there is a difference between the first trial and the second. In this instance, the balance of doubtthe balance of advantage, so to speakin the argument ought to lie with my perception rather than with that of the hon. Gentleman. If he is right, there will not be much to worry about if we follow the course that I recommend. If I am right, however, and we do as he recommends, we would have a real problem. The presumption of innocence is the single most important feature of our judicial system, and I want to protect it absolutelyeven, if necessary, beyond the point at which it needs protection.
	I shall now move on to the question of the character of the defendant. I should begin by saying that some weeks ago, I would have described this issue in terms of the release of information about previous convictions. If I were still able so to describe it, I would say that we had severe hesitations about the release of previous convictions to juries and that we wanted, in this case as in that of double jeopardy, explicit and much tougher safeguards to ensure that such convictions were released and continued to be releasedof course, they are already released under certain circumstancesonly where the presumption of innocence and the prosecution's duty to prove beyond reasonable doubt were protected. In Committee or on Report or both, we shall table amendments specifically to introduce such additional safeguards.
	However, I cannot describe that part of the Bill as dealing with the release of previous convictions because, to my astonishmentthat is an accurate descriptionwhen we saw the Bill we discovered that it does not deal with the release of previous convictions alone. For example, if I understand it correctly, it deals with the release to juries of previous acquittals. I have to say that that fair takes the breath away. I cannot understand for the life of me how a jury can be expected to start with the presumption of innocence if it is open to the prosecution to bring forward a general character assassination based on innuendo and previous acquittal, tending, in the words of the Bill, to show a disposition on the part of the defendant towards criminality.
	Alas, I think that I understand entirely the logic behind the proposals in that part of the Bill. Lord Falconer, who is one of the Home Secretary's close colleagues, will handle the Bill in the Lords. He is a distinguished juristone of Britain's most distinguishedand he comes from a long tradition of civil litigation. I believe that he starts with the idea that, in the words of Lord Justice Auld, with which I agree, justice is not a game. However, I believe that he also starts with the view that if justice is not a game it should, fundamentally, be a judgment on the balance of probabilities. That is an appropriate test when two people are arguing about how to allocate moneys between them, but it is wholly inappropriate to the question of depriving citizens of their liberties, perhaps for a long time.
	I am devoted to the principle that we should eliminate from the list of factors that can be brought before a jury in any circumstances all those that have not been the subject of proof beyond reasonable doubt in a prior court. Having eliminated all other items, we would need additional safeguards that explicitly referred to the presumption of innocence and proof beyond reasonable doubt. Even then, if that position were achieved, I would, with a heavy heart, ask my hon. Friends to vote for such amended proposals. I would fear them even so, although I see the strength of the argument that at present there are inhibitions on trial judges that may need to be reduced to some degree.
	I apologise to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and to the House, for having gone on so long, but I want two minutes to add one more point.

Elfyn Llwyd: The right hon. Gentleman knows, of course, that there is a right to introduce similar-fact evidence in certain circumstances, but is it not strange that the one category, or qualifying term, with regard to introducing bad character is that
	Xwithout it, the court or jury would find it impossible or difficult properly to understand other evidence in the case?
	I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman will forgive me for saying so, but I have prosecuted many cases, and one of the prosecutor's jobs is to explain the case to the court and the jury. Frankly, if prosecutors cannot do so without denigrating the defendant's character, they should jolly well give up the Bar.

Oliver Letwin: I agree with the hon. Gentlemanand beyond that, that phrasing reveals all too clearly the very logic that I was exposing. It means that trying to persuade an old-fashioned jury beyond reasonable doubt, and against the presumption of innocence, that according to the facts presented, the person in question did what they are accused of, is beyond the wit of the prosecution, and therefore that explaining the prosecution's point to the jury's satisfaction is easier if it can make a pile of other assertions about the defendant. Well, I am sure that is true. If the hon. Gentleman were prosecuting me, he could say things about mewith perfect truth, alasthat would help him in his prosecution, but that would not prove that I had performed the deed of which I was accused. That is the essential difference.
	As I was saying, I want to spend two minutes responding to and defending myself against accusations. On various occasions, in the House and outside, the Home Secretary has said he finds it annoying that the official Opposition often greet his proposals with some warmththat has been the case with the generality of the Billand then, following the outcome, cause an awful lot of trouble for him and his colleagues in the House of Lords.
	I have to say that I am not ashamed of that concatenation. I think it reasonable for us to back the generality of the Bill but to object to certain clauses. I also think it reasonable for us to try to forge an alliance with Members of the other House who are members of the Home Secretary's own party, and with Liberal Democrats and Cross Benchers in the other placewith, in many instances, Law Lords and bishopsand to limit the scope of Government action, especially in relation to matters that have very little effect on the control of crime.
	The three things I have mentioned in particular today will not, between them, account for any significant number of trials, or for any significant number of criminals. They do, however, have vast potential significance in relation to the fabric of our liberties. If there is a proper role for this House and the other place in checking and limiting the Government of this country, it is to protect the fabric of liberties against the Executive. That is the solemn duty of Parliament, and I am unashamed of trying to use Parliament to fulfil it.
	One of my colleagues in the shadow Cabinet who used to be involved, as a lawyer, in trials in Scotland told me that at the beginning of one trial the judge said, XBring on the next criminal. That is the mindset to which we object.

Several hon. Members: rose

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I remind Members that Mr. Speaker has imposed a 12-minute limit on Back-Bench speeches.

Chris Mullin: May I draw Members' attention to my Select Committee's report on the Bill, which was published this morning and may help them? May I also lodge the usual protest that it is extremely difficult for a Select Committee to scrutinise a Bill published only 13 days before Second Reading, without explanatory noteswhich became available only on Friday last week, after our report had been finalised? Our witnesses had to give evidence without having seen the Bill. I will not labour the point, because it was made earlier by my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen). Let me repeat, however, that the sooner all Bills are published in draft, as the Extradition Bill was, the better it will be for all concerned. I do not know what the Home Secretary has lined up for us to deal with in the next Session, but it would be nice to think that the finest minds in his Department were already working on it, so that we could avoid the same unseemly rush next time.
	I believe that I speak for the entire Committee in saying that I am happy to support any measures designed to cut out unnecessary delay, and to make our notoriously insensitive judicial system more sensitive to the interests of victims and witnesses. We will also support any reasonable measures that help to make the judicial process a search for truth rather than a game of chance. I entirely agree with what the Home Secretary said about that.
	The penny still has to drop for many of our learned friends. A policeman of my acquaintance told me last week that he recently heard a judge who was addressing an audience of 50 flatly reject the notion that the trial process constituted a search for truth. What we will not support, however, are measures that, however well intentioned, are likely to dilute the quality of justice. This Bill contains one or two such measures, one of which we have dealt with thanks to assurances from the Home Secretary about the disclosure of names and addresses of witnesses to the prosecution. The other measureconcerning previous character, which I shall come to in a momentrequires further discussion.
	On part 1 of the Bill, we welcome measures such as street bail, which will reduce unnecessary police bureaucracy without impinging on the rights of the accused. We do not, however, believe that a convincing case has been made for extending to 36 hours the detention limit. In our view, there are alternative and more appropriate measures in the Bill, such as conditional bail, which will help to alleviate any problems with existing time constraints. On amendments to PACE, we strongly believe that any significant amendments should come into effect by affirmative order and not, as proposed in clause 7, simply by laying the amendment before Parliament. I should be grateful for the Minister's assurance on that point.
	On parts 2 and 4, which deal with bail and charging, we support the proposal in clause 16 to impose a treatment condition on bail for class A drug abusers. However, it is obvious that that will work only if treatment is readily available, and we look forward to the Minister's proposals as to where and when treatment will be available. Perhaps we can discuss that matter in more detail tomorrow. We accept that a power to impose conditions on bail before charging is a necessary and logical part of the move towards charging by the Crown Prosecution Service, but we recommend a number of safeguards in addition to those in schedule 2notably a time limit of four weeks, which the Association of Chief Police Officers proposed in its evidence to the Committee. I should be grateful if Ministers would consider this point.
	On part 5, which deals with disclosure, we welcome the proposal for a single objective test. As I have said, I think that revisions to the Home Secretary's proposed code will deal with the problem of potential abuse where names and addresses of defence witnesses are disclosed to the prosecution.
	On part 7, we welcome the Government's decision to retain the defendant's right to elect jury trial in so-called either-way cases. However, we accept that, in a limited category of casessuch as those where there is evidence of jury tamperingcogent reasons may exist for dispensing with jury trial. Nevertheless, as has already been pointed out, we should scrutinise carefully whether an allegation that a jury is about to be tampered with is being used as a device for escaping jury trial. Members of the Committee reluctantly acceptedwe were by no means unanimous on this pointthat this measure may also be necessary in complex fraud and financial trials, on the ground that length alone arguably undermines the principle of random selection of juries. We accept that in such cases, the rights of the defendant are adequately protected by the provision of a right to appeal against a decision not to grant a jury trial.
	I should add, however, that I do not acceptas I have sometimes heard it suggestedthat it is necessary to dispense with a jury because the issues are so complex that only a clever lawyer can understand them. It is up to the prosecution to present its case in such a way that ordinary mortals can understand the issues. [Hon. Members: XHear, hear.] I have also heard it argued that this may be the thin end of the wedge. I hope that no one in the Government takes that viewto judge by what the Home Secretary has said today, I doubt whether he doesbecause I do not, and nor does my Committee. Any attempt to go further will be met with stiff resistance.
	On double jeopardy, the Committee welcomes the proposed reforms, which are in line with the conclusions of its report of two years ago. The Committee believes that the proposed safeguardsthat only certain serious offences will be taken into account, that retrials will be subject to the approval of the Attorney-General and the Court of Appeal, and that new and compelling evidence must existare adequate to prevent abuse.
	There was concern that the proposed increase in magistrates' sentencing powers might inflate the prison population unless it was implemented after the custody plus scheme was rolled out. I look forward to hearing from the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, Central (Hilary Benn), on that point.
	We welcome the Government's proposal to preserve the presumption against hearsay evidence, subject to certain exceptions. I understand that the Government are proposing to adopt the Law Commission's suggestions on the reform of hearsay. I welcome that.
	The biggest bone of contention is the proposal to admit previous similar convictions. The Committee was unanimously of the view that such convictions should not be disclosed automatically. We believe that that is a bridge too far. As the right hon. Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin) noted, the measure undermines a fundamental principle of our criminal justice systemthe presumption of innocence. It opens up the prospect of previous convictions being used to prop up an otherwise weak case. In our view, it will inevitably increase the temptation for police to round up the usual suspects. Far from helping to create a balance between the rights of defendants and accusers, the proposal would create an imbalance. For all those reasons, we believe that clauses 84 to 92 should be deleted from the Bill.
	It may well be that safeguards can be brought in to meet our concerns on these matters. I shall only say that they will have to be pretty mighty, and that it is difficult for me to think what they could be. Speaking for myself, I shall vote for the Bill on Second Reading, but I shall not be minded to support it on Third Reading if it still contains that proposal. I should regret that, because I hope that I have made it clear that the Bill contains many useful and sensible measures. This proposal is not one of them, however.
	The Committee has suggested some possible additions to the Bill that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary might consider. They include anonymity for defendants in sexual offence cases, especially in those that involve historical abuse; the outlawing of unrecorded cell confessions; and the question of payments to witnesses.
	I shall elaborate on the latter suggestion. As Ministers will know, a number of major criminal trials have collapsed because the media have made payments to witnesses, sometimes on condition that the trial results in conviction. The issue has been the subject of endless debate and consultation. The Government accepted the National Heritage Select Committee recommendation that self-regulation would not work and that legislation was the only possible solution. Five years later, the media are still drinking in that much frequented hostelry, the last chance saloon. We think that the Bill provides an ideal opportunity to legislate on this matter, although I appreciate that the business managers may have something say about that.
	In conclusion, the question that arose over and over again in relation to many of the measures in the Bill was, XWhat is the problem they are intended to solve? In many cases, the answer was that the resulting improvements would be modest in the overall scheme of things. I do not denigrate them: as I have just made clear, many represent progress and are perfectly sensible. However, as the right hon. Member for West Dorset noted a moment ago, if we are to restore the credibility of our system of justice, a cultural change by all the agencies concerned is required more than legislation. It is disorganised crime rather than organised crime that blights the lives of so many of our constituents. In most cases, the perpetrators never get anywhere near the courts because they are not apprehended and, in many cases, the courts are not the relevant agency.
	First, we must end the culture of impunity. That requires effective and visible policing. I have always believed that 100 policemen on bicycles are more effective than two in a helicopter. For cases that do not reach court, we need efficient, speedy and fair justice that takes into account the legitimate rights of victims and witnesses and not just those of the defendant, important though those are, or the convenience of the lawyers. That is not so important.
	Above all, we must end the culture of adjournment, which more than anything else makes our legal system a nightmare for victims and witnesses. It plays into the hands of unscrupulous defence lawyers and their clients.
	In the end, those are management issues. They require not legislation, but effective management. I hope that the Government have now created for the police and the courts the legislative framework that will enable our system of justice to be managed in a way that commands the confidence of everyone who comes into contact with it.

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman's time is up.

Simon Hughes: I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin) and to the work that he and the Select Committee on Home Affairs do so promptly and efficiently to ensure that we regularly have the support and advice of his Committee before we deliberate on important Bills such as this. Let me pick just one matter from the many items that the Home Affairs Committee has recommended with which Liberal Democrat Members agree. The hon. Gentleman's last point has often been made to me about so much Home Office businesswe need to deal with the administration, not the legislation. The Home Secretary understands this point and often makes it himself. If we could get the system working well, that might be more useful than seeking to amend the law which often does not make things work better.
	I thank the Home Secretary for the way in which he responded to the concerns expressed about the run-up to today in terms of the information available. I look forward to having the missing pieces of the information jigsaw as soon as possible. He must understand that we are all grappling with a work load that is bigger than we might have chosennone the less we need the tools to enable Parliament to do its job.
	I understand exactly the point made by the hon. Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen). I also take the view that we should have draft Bills and pre-legislative scrutiny. The only reason we did not put down a motion proposing that this should be committed to a Special Standing Committee was that we had the Halliday report, the Auld report, the White Paper and a period of consultation. I hope that the Home Secretary understands that that was an attempt to respond positively to a Bill that has had a longer gestation period than much legislation. However, legislation often changes quite a lot between concept and delivery. As the right hon. Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin) said, the Bill contains some provisions that were not in the plans a few weeks ago.

Graham Allen: One of the advantages of pre-legislative scrutiny on the White Paper, which was eminently readable and well put together, would be to avoid having some of these provisions in draft legislation. There would be less confrontation in this House or the other place because we would have been listening to people outside the House ahead of time.

Simon Hughes: Absolutely. Let me then make a point that I was going to make later. At lunchtime today, I had the privilege of being invited to Church House for the launch of a book called XThe Future of Criminal Justice, published by the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge. I know that the Under-Secretary of State was also invited. The book's editorial was written by Lord Hurd of Westwell. The book was written in tribute to Bob Hardy who, for 16 years until last year, was the bishop for the prisons. He was Bishop of Lincoln for much of that time. I went in part because he used to be my college chaplainI thought that he was a good man then and he went on to be an even more important good man later.
	Lord Hurd said in his introduction that one of the problems is that the penal system is a rather forlorn public service. The criminal justice system, until recently, has also been a rather forlorn public service in terms of the way in which we do our business. I accept the hon. Gentleman's pointthat we need a less confrontational way of dealing with these reforms. I hope that the tone of the Liberal Democrats in this debate, in Committee and in the conversations that have taken place between the three major parties in recent weeks, has shown and will continue to show that although we may have strong differences and strong views, we will listen to the arguments, respond to them and amend our views if we are persuaded. That must be the way to make this very important Bill better and get it as near to being right as any legislation can be.
	I have one last point that I hope will be accepted as a statement of desire for consensus. The Home Secretary has heard me say elsewhere that we want to try, with him, to get a settled criminal justice system, not one that is for ever open to legislative change. We will work with him and others in all parties to get a codification of the criminal law. There are big prizes if we can work together.
	The Government have accepted that some of the mistakes that they made in their last Administration should not be made again. It is clear that the Home Secretary and the present Government have accepted the case that was made and won in the last Parliament: to get rid of the right to elect for trial by jury is a mistake and it should not have been proposed. After being defeated three times on the issue, the Government have understood that it should no longer be on the agenda. That is definite progress and we welcome it.
	At the reception that I attended earlier, Lord Hurd said that the House of Commons often does not Xdo its stuff in ensuring that Bills such as this are right. Other people who were there made points that were partly alluded to in the remarks of the right hon. Member for West Dorset. The biggest failures in the criminal justice system do not happen between the beginning and ending of the trialthey occur elsewhere. There is not enough crime prevention. People are not deterred enough from committing crimes. We do not catch people who commit crimes nearly enough. Punishments are not effective enough. We do not prevent reoffending enough. Those are the priorities, and I have heard no dissenting voices about that.
	At the end of the last Session, when we debated the laws on immigration, nationality and asylum and the Home Office directorates that dealt with those matters, we pointed out that administration and organisation require the most attention from the Government. The same is true for this Bill. We may try to improve things by legislating, but our systems of trial and punishment will benefit much more from structural review. There will of course be resource implications.
	Our consideration of the Bill gives us the opportunity to do two equally important things during the next few months. First, it will put the criminal justice system on trialout in the open. There can be real debate about how to get it right. Secondly, it will put Parliament on trial, for the reasons set out by the right hon. Member for West Dorset and with which Liberal Democrats agree.
	One test of whether Parliament does its job properly is whether we understand what the fundamentally important liberties of the subject are, and how to defend them. Unless we understand that, we shall not pass the test. All participants in the criminal justice system must believe that it is just for them, and that means just for defendants, too, even though they start by being the least popular group in the system.
	Many people deserve praise for the way in which they participate in our criminal justice system: lay magistrates; people who work for the Court Service; judges and the Prison Service, from the director general downwards. By and large, they do an extremely good job. If there are mistakes and failings, it is often because people are not given the right direction or leadership.
	As I pointed out to the Home Secretary earlier, however, it is not necessary to reduce the rights of defendants in order to increase rights and a sense of justice for victims, and some of us become somewhat aggrieved when that is suggested. In the sort of communities represented by the Home Secretary, the Under-Secretary and me, we need no lessons on the need to look after victims and witnesses. In many urban communities, we know the score extremely well. However, those communities have more than their fair share of defendants too. It is no accident that most people who end up as defendants are not rich and well heeledalthough some arebut are those with the least education and the poorest start in life. That is not to say that my hon. Friends and I believe that people should not take responsibility for their actions whatever their circumstances. Adults should be accountable for what they do. They are answerable for their actions and they should be dealt with. But it is not without significance that the majority of inmates in nearly every prison or youth offender institute have lower than average academic qualifications, fewer skills, more mental illness and more disordered backgrounds. Many have been in care, have become prey to addiction or are socially inadequate and sad.
	We all have a responsibility to understand that situation. The better answer is not to keep such people locked up for longer and longer. We have to ensure that they do not get into those circumstances in the first place. That is why, behind all we can do to get our trial and punishment systems right at the end of the day, sentencing reformalternatives to prisonis the central, underlying issue for me. The alternatives need huge improvement and significant investment, and they have often been the Cinderella service because prisons are not the most popular things to put in an election manifesto for reasons that we all understand.
	There are two areas of common ground, and I will mention them in a sentence each. As the hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr. Llwyd) said, we need to get back to an understanding that the sequence of punishment starts with rebuke, warning and caution, goes on to fines, which have been grossly under-used and have become inefficient because no one collects them properlya point made by the hon. Gentlemanthen involves non-custodial alternatives, and only when all those have been absolutely exhausted should the custodial alternative be considered last.
	May I also tell Ministers without qualification that the custody plus and custody minus proposals are extremely good? When people receive a sentence, some of which will be served in custody, they will in future understand that the sentence does not end when they come out of the prison doors, that what happens outside is as important as what happens inside and that the support, rehabilitation and retraining will continue afterwards too. If we can get that right, the ridiculous nonsense of people being literally thrown out of the prison gate and left to fend for themselves, with the consequencewe all know about itthat they often go back in again will, we hope, be considerably reduced.
	The Home Secretary does not like this phrase, but there are three mixed messages and at least one wrong message. The Prime Minister has often saidhe did so again today in answer to the hon. and learned Member for Medway (Mr. Marshall-Andrews)that the criminal justice system does not adequately convict the guilty. I simply do not think that that is right; it is a gross exaggeration of what happens. The Prime Minister also sometimes says that the greatest miscarriage of justice is when the guilty go free, not when the innocent are convicted. I do not think that that is right either.
	The price of a decent justice system is that, occasionally, the guilty will go freethe guilty will not be convictedand it is wrong to think that trying to deal with that very small number of people is a price worth paying if, as a result, we end up with a criminal justice system that convicts more people unjustly or treats them unfairly.
	I shall remind the House of the figures. I need not elaborate on them, but 95 per cent. of defendants in magistrates courts plead guilty, 74 per cent. of defendants in Crown courts plead guilty and 65 per cent. of defendants in contested trials at Crown courts are acquitted. The total shows that nothing like most people are acquitted; a huge proportion of them are convicted because those people admit their guilt or because they are found guilty after trial. So the failure is not that hordes of people are let out when they should have been convicted. That is not the central issue that we need to address today.

Dominic Grieve: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the Prime Minister's comments today introduce a slightly worrying feature to the debate? It is important that we have a rational debate, but for the Prime Minister to suggestI also heard his words todaythat those who are acquitted by juries are guilty seems to run counter to the entirety of our legal principles and to start our serious debate on quite the wrong foot.

Simon Hughes: I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman. I was extremely troubled by what the Prime Minister said in answer to the question asked from the Labour Benches. The Government are becoming increasingly obsessed with putting up the conviction rate as though that were the right test and with trying to produce a system that makes that outcome more likely. The danger is that they will start to cut corners, to eat away at liberties and to undermine the criminal justice system, which used to have the best reputation in the world.
	Other things concern me. I hear mixed messages from the Government about whether the number of people in prison ought to be increased or decreased. The Prime Minister seems to say that more people need to be put in prison; the Home Secretary seems to say that fewer people need to be imprisoned. We on the Liberal Democrat Benches believe that many people who are in prison do not need to be there and that we should not seek to go on increasing the numbers.
	It would be helpful if the Government would make it clear whether it is their wish that prison numbers should start to go down and that the recent huge increase and huge overcrowding are trends that should not be replicated, with the danger of 100,000 people being locked up, increasingly two to a cell and with increasingly unsuccessful outcomes.

Ann Widdecombe: Of course there is a difference between deploring overcrowding, as I did today, and taking a view as to whether more or fewer people should be in prison. With overcrowding, the number of places is inadequate no matter how many people there are. I put it to the hon. Gentleman that the aim of the justice system is not to imprison more or fewer people; the aim must be to find places where courts determine that custody is appropriate to protect the public.

Simon Hughes: I agree with the right hon. Lady, but if she looks at the figuresshe probably knows them as well as I do and will probably remember them specifically from her time as a Ministershe will see that, 10 years ago, one in 26 people who appeared before the courts went into custody. Now, one in 13 do soexactly double the number. The same number of people appears before the courts and I cannot believe that is it necessary for double the number of people to be sent into custody now compared with 10 years ago. That happens because fines or alternatives to custody are not considered or thought to be inadequate. [Interruption.] The right hon. Lady says from a sedentary position that there is more crime, but I have to challenge her: there is not.

Ann Widdecombe: I said that the system has brought crime down.

Simon Hughes: It may or may not have brought crime down, but the Liberal Democrats share the view of the Director General of the Prison Service that the length of prison sentences imposed by the courts, especially magistrates courts, is drifting upwards, as is the frequency with which they impose prison sentences, and that more effective alternatives to custody should be available so that the best punishment and treatment is provided.

Ann Widdecombe: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way a second time; it is extremely generous of him. What I said from a sedentary positionI did not dare test his generosity by standing up againwas not that there is more crime now, but that the system brought crime down. Does he accept that, in fact, a sharp increase in the prison population has coincided with the only sharp decrease in crime that we have had in 30 years?

Simon Hughes: The answer is that, as the right hon. Lady rightly suggests, there is one recent period when an increase in the prison population coincided with a fall in the crime figures, but whether the two things are directly linked is much more disputable. All that I know from those who do such things for their day jobs all the time is that, at the moment, the prison system has a high failure rate in terms of reoffending, particularly for young people, but for adults as well. We need a more successful punishment regime, with fewer people being imprisoned and more people receiving punishment in the community so that they can keep their jobs and stop their families breaking up. That must be a better alternative.

David Cameron: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way; he has been generous. Does he agree that community sentences will not work as an alternative to prison unless they are viewed as tough and rigorous by those who impose sentencesmagistrates, mostlyand by victims? That is absolutely key if we are to keep the prison population down. What does he think about weekend prison, which seems expensive in terms of prison places? The key is to have community sentenceswhether picking up litter or wiping away graffitithat people can see are rigorous, tough and meaningful.

Simon Hughes: I have always taken the view that community sentences not only need to mean something, but to be seen to mean something. They must be seen to be worth imposing. They are getting much better. The Youth Justice Board and many other people have recently done a lot of work on them, but I entirely accept what the hon. Gentleman says. I agree that such sentences will often not be adequate, unless victims and others think that they represent real alternatives. As a postscript to that point, one of the things being explored in the hon. Gentleman's police authority area is the idea of victims and defendants confronting each other, so that the defendant understands the effect of his crime on the victim. The pilot schemes are not concluded, but it appears that it is much more likely that people will be persuaded not to repeat certain behaviour when they realise and accept the trauma that has been caused to the victim.
	I am conscious that many other Members want and ought to be heard, so I shall be brief about my two other concerns about Government mixed messages, one of which is about money. The explanatory notes include the bill for the Government's custody plus and custody minus schemes. We have also had an announcement of more money in the coming year for the probation service. It is quite a large bill. The costs of implementation, over the next five years, will be 34 million, 195 million, 301 million, 361 million, 378 million and 390 million. According to the projection, the costs will continue at 390 million per year thereafter. It would be very helpful if, at the end of the debate, the Minister could tell us whether it is true that if we pass the Bill the Government will be able to fund the custody plus and custody minus schemes. Alternatively, is it true, as some of his ministerial colleagues have suggested recently, that it will be 10 or 12 years before the money comes through the system to provide the kind of intelligent sentencing system that we all agree is necessary?
	The last mixed message relates to clause 9 on drugs. It is unclear to send a message that cannabis is much less harmful than heroin, crack cocaine and the rest yet legislate to make an arrestable offence with an imprisonment consequence for possession, as well as other things, as clause 9 seeks to do. It would be far better if the dealing and commercial exploitation of drugs was seen as the iniquity that needed to be punished and dealing in cannabis for personal use was seen in a different league.
	I must refer to the three giant issues of the Bill. Liberal Democrats stand up for lay justice. Like the Conservative spokesman, for us, lay magistrates and lay jury trials are the cornerstone of a criminal justice system in which the public have confidence. Because we are dealing with the fundamentals of libertywhether people are arrested, detained, convicted and imprisonedthe best people to decide those matters with confidence are those who come from the community concerned, not the professionals. We cannot therefore accept the changes that are currently recommended.
	On the change in the rules of evidence, it cannot be right, as the Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee said, that there is wider scope for evidence relating to a defendant's previous life to be brought into a trial when what they are being judged on is the specific offence with which they are charged. There is a huge risk that people will in future be judged not by whether they have done something on a particular day, but by how they have lived their life and whether they have done things wrong previously. Rehabilitation is not possible if people cannot escape from their past. It is too easy to pick up people who have been regular offenders. That changes the presumption of a fair trial and the presumption of innocence in a way that we cannot accept.
	In relation to jury trials, the Minister knowsbecause we have had a conversation and debates about our objectionshow successful serious fraud trials are. We have been reminded of that today. There are other ways of dealing with such cases. We can have assessors together with the judge, a smaller jury, a jury in which people are able to commit themselves for a long period, additional written material to help jurors, and an adviser to make sure that people understand the issues, but we need not get rid of the principle that, ultimately, the jury decides.
	On the dangers in relation to the risk of intimidation, we understand the issue, but the threshold is too low. The serious risk applying to one defendant could suddenly mean that the jury trial disappears for all. We do not believe that that is right, and we hope that the Government will accept that that must be changed.
	On double jeopardy, in answer to the question asked by the right hon. Member for West Dorset, we do not have an absolutist view. We do believe, however, that questions must be answered before we need to change the law. How will we ensure that, in future, any acquittal on a serious offence in the list will not, in effect, be a conditional acquittal? How will the press be prevented from determining the jury's view as it starts the second trial? We also express concern, as my hon. Friend the Member for Torridge and West Devon (Mr. Burnett) said in his intervention on the Home Secretary, that the Law Commission recommendations in relation to the test and the chargesnamely, murderhave been greatly widened by the Government. Again, we would require a much narrower range of opportunities for retrial. My honest judgment is that retrial only on the basis of scientific evidence that was not previously available might be agreed across the parties and would be likely to find more acceptance outside the House.
	I have a long list of lesser first division points, although I can only deal with a couple. We share the concerns of the Home Affairs Committee that increased detention may not be the right answer, but more effective inquiry is needed in the time provided. We are worried that the criteria for the most serious violent and sex offendersfrom whom we agree the public need greater protectionhave been drawn too widely. For example, one of the offences in the list of those that would put someone in the indefinite sentence category is soliciting by men, which will be abolished in the sexual offences Bill that will be introduced in only a few months' time. It seems to us that the net is too wide. Ministers should seriously consider whether a decision later in a sentence on whether someone who has been convicted for a serious sex or violence offence is safe to be released should come back to court, so that a judge, having heard the case in public, can decide whether that person is fit to go back into the community. I do not accept the Home Secretary's view that there can never be redemption or rehabilitation, however terrible the crimes are. People may commit crimes that make them reviled as the scum of the earth, but even some of those individuals may later come good and be safe to be released. We must always allow for that eventuality.
	In relation to the increase in magistrates' powers, the risk is that we have much more severe sentences, although we do not have objections in principle to more severe sentences for persistent offenders. In our view, however, there should never be mandatory sentences; otherwise, we will end up with a nonsense in which people are sentenced to a long term of imprisonment when their last offence may have been after a very long interval or may have been much less serious than those that they committed previously. That is why we are clear too that Ministers should not set tariffs. Parliament should set a maximum sentence, judges should set the actual sentence and, in dangerous and violent cases, the courts should decide when somebody should be released.
	Since I have been my party's spokesman, I have tried to make it clear, along with my hon. Friends, that our party is not weak on crime or naive about the causes of crime. Like everybody else, my focus group is my community. We are all formed by our experiences, and crime is at the top of many people's agenda. But neither will we be weak on justice nor on defending the rights and liberties of an ordinary person who happens to be a defendant, possibly for the first time in their life, and possibly only once in their life in a criminal trial.
	Like the hon. and learned Member for Medway, although we tabled a reasoned amendment, it was not accepted, about which we make no criticism. We will therefore vote against the Second Reading of the Bill. That is not because we think that everything in the Bill is wrongas I said to the Minister, we welcome many aspects of itbut because we believe that we need to register our opposition to some fundamentally wrong elements in it. We invite hon. Members on both sides of the House who feel able to do so to join us in that opposition. We will then work constructively, in this place and in the other place, because, when legislating for criminal justice, it is important that everybody thinks that justice has won, and that everybody feels that the system will treat them more justly in the future than it does at present.

Ross Cranston: I declare an interest. I am a member of one of the unpopular groups that the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes) mentioned. I am a lawyer in the House. The register also has the entry that I am a recorder. I have sat in the Crown court for 10 years.
	I commend very much the measured and open-minded way in which my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary presented the Bill. That paves the way for its thorough consideration as it wends its way through both Houses.
	On the Bill's background, I do not accept the view that some people have expressed, including police groups, that the Bill swings the pendulum back in favour of victims and witnesses. There is no symmetry between defendants on the one hand and victims and witnesses on the other. I also do not accept what is said at the other end of the spectrum. The Bill is not a frightening attack on civil liberties or a fundamental attack on ancient constitutional values. It is a collection of discrete and sensible reforms, based on detailed inquiries by John Halliday, Sir Robin Auld and the Law Commission. I commend John Halliday on his excellent report on sentencing. It was also right that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister paid tribute this afternoon to Lord Justice Auld for his thoroughly researched and rewarding report. As my right hon. Friend said, Sir Robin Auld is a man of enormous experience.
	I do not want to spend too much time on the non-controversial provisions in the Bill, but I very much welcome the sentencing provisions in it. A philosophy of sentencing is clearly set out and there are useful measures on the deferral of sentences and rehabilitative sentencing. They are very much to be welcomed. I also welcome provisions that will give the prosecution the right to appeal when a judge stops a case halfway through. At present, there is a convoluted procedure whereby the Attorney-General has to refer the case to the Court of Appeal, but it cannot make a definitive ruling on it although there is a prospective effect given what the court might say about the judge's ruling. These changes are valuable.
	I want to discuss the controversial measures that were addressed in the speeches made by the Front-Bench spokesmen. The first measure is the possibility that in complex and lengthy casesfraud cases in particularthe jury will be dispensed with and the case will be tried by the judge alone. I accept the point made by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Medway (Mr. Marshall-Andrews) that juries are competent to deal with such cases. If the charges are stripped down and presented properly to the jury, it can understand them.
	However, I support the change for two reasons. First, it is not possible to find a representative jury for such long and complex cases. We cannot expect people in ordinary jobs to take three, four, six or eight months off work. Therefore, it is not possible to have a representative jury. Secondly and more importantthis point has not yet come outthe way in which the cases are stripped down to be presented to juries does not demonstrate to them the true complexity of the case and the true criminality of the fraud involved.

Robert Marshall-Andrews: Will my hon. and learned Friend give way?

Ross Cranston: May I seek your guidance, Mr. Deputy Speaker? Do I lose part of my time if I give way?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The hon. and learned Gentleman has obviously not been diligently reading Hansard or our rulings on the matter. I assure him that there is an additional minute for any intervention that he takes, up to and including the first two. I hope that that is helpful.

Ross Cranston: Thank you for that guidance, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I thought that, with modernisation, the rule might have changed. I give way to my hon. and learned Friend.

Robert Marshall-Andrews: Can my hon. and learned Friend cite a single fraud case that bears out or backs up the proposition that he has just made?

Ross Cranston: My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary mentioned the Maxwell case, and abuse-of-process arguments apply to such cases. The prosecution brings first a stripped-down charge, the jury acquits after six months, the prosecution then comes along with the second charge and is told by the judge that that is an abuse of process. The trial then stops. The true complexity of the criminality is never revealed to the public if such an approach is used.

Dominic Grieve: Will the hon. and learned Gentleman give way?

Ross Cranston: As this is the second intervention, I will give way.

Dominic Grieve: Surely the abuse of process is related to the onerous burden that it placed upon defendants. That was the nub of the burden; it had nothing to do with the jury or its status. A new jury might be produced. The problem was the burden placed on defendants in a series of prosecutions and, doubtless, may also have reflected the judge's view of the state that the prosecution had got itself into.

Ross Cranston: The hon. Gentleman makes my point for me. That is precisely what I am saying. The true complexity of the fraud was never put before a jury, because of the abuse-of-process arguments.The hon. Gentleman also misunderstood what my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said this afternoon.

Robert Marshall-Andrews: Will my hon. and learned Friend give way?

Ross Cranston: I cannot give way again. My hon. and learned Friend will have his say.
	The shadow Home Secretary talked about slippery slopes in relation to this change. He suggested that it would somehow lead to elected judges. Frankly, I am still grappling with the gap in the logic there. I support the change as a sensible, limited and discrete measure to deal with complex fraud.
	I also want to speak briefly about the issue of double jeopardy, which arose in the Stephen Lawrence inquiry. The gateways in the Bill are very narrowly drawn. First, the Court of Appeal has to sanction a second trial. Secondly, the Director of Public Prosecutions has to give his consent, and that must include a public interest test. Thirdly, there must be new and compelling evidence, such as DNA evidence or a post-acquittal admission. It must be highly probable that the person is guilty. Fourthly, there is the interests-of-justice test.
	Concerns have been expressed about bad policing, but I invite my hon. Friends to look at clause 66(2)(c), where that issue is specifically addressed. It is not, therefore, a serious concern. There are problems about retrials and the prejudice that might be caused to the defendant if it becomes known that the Court of Appeal has held that it was highly probable that he was guilty. There are provisions in the Bill about how the media can be handled, and retrials already happen in some cases. I acknowledge the practical problem but that should be examined more clearly later in our considerations.
	Evidence about bad character will, in the main, be about previous convictions. Previous convictions are already admissible. The hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr. Llwyd) raised the issue of important explanatory evidence. If someone is prosecuted and has already been convicted of the offence of driving while disqualified, we have to adduce his previous conviction. I concede that the provision can be more broadly interpreted, and I shall deal with that point shortly. However, previous convictions can already be admitted. The House of Lords considered similar-fact evidence recently and extended the circumstances in which previous convictions can be admissible. Other examples include evidence of state of mind in handling cases and attacks on the prosecution. When a jury does not receive a good character direction, it knows implicitly that the defendant has previous convictions.
	Clause 84 rationalises those provisions in many ways, but there are concerns. The Bar Council rightly asked whether the judicial filter should be stronger. Clause 84(3) imposes a judicial filter, but not in relation to all provisions in clause 84(1). I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will consider whether judges should always consider the admissibility of previous convictions.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin) referred to bolstering a bad case. A stronger judicial filter would deal with his objection. Propensity is not proof, but we have to be realistic. The chairman of the Magistrates Association said in a speech yesterday that when she sat on the bench she often knew that a defendant had previous convictions because, in a small community, she had dealt with that person before. Typically in France, the first thing a judge does is to read out previous convictions. If properly applied and modified as I suggest, the provision could be useful.
	I agree with what the Front-Bench spokesmen said about the administration of justice. That is one aspect of the necessary changes. The courts Bill will address some of the other problems with the administration of justice, but this Bill is sensible and modest and will improve confidence in the criminal justice system.

Ann Widdecombe: I want to address not only what is in the Bill, but what is not in it because there are one or two important omissions.
	The Bill makes no attempt to introduce an offence of substantial possession in drugs cases. The arrestability for possession of drugs has been mentioned. My principal concern is that following the Home Secretary's decision to reclassify cannabisI shall leave my strong disapproval of that to one side for a momentsomeone who carries a substantial quantity of it can argue that it is for personal use only and is, for example, a year's supply. Indeed, such a defence was mounted by someone accused of dealing in ecstasy. He said that he happened to be carrying 52 tablets because it amounted to one a week for a year.
	I have long argued that there should be an offence of substantial possession. I would welcome the Government's response to that because the Home Secretary has said that he would take the matter seriously. Such an offence would mean that although intent to supply cannot be absolutely proved, the quantity possessed is sufficiently great for it not to be treated as a case of simple possession. It would be helpful to address the idea of substantial possession. The argument that a drug is for personal consumption over a long time is a standard defence to charges of intent to supply.
	The Chairman of the Select Committee briefly touched on the other measure that is missing. He suggested that the Home Secretary might like to consider anonymity for defendants in rape cases. It is wholly wrong and completely unbalanced against the accused that his identity is known throughout when the accuser's identity is not. To justify that, it is often argued that if a defendant has committed similar unreported crimes, the disclosure of his identity encourages people to come forward. But of course, the converse argument applies. If the accuser has made false allegations beforeperhaps not even at a legal point, but in an employment contextno similar means are open to the defendant, which would encourage people to come forward and say that that has happened before. It is loading the dice against the accused, who is nearly always a man, of course. I wish that the men in this place would occasionally wake up and realise that the dice is being more and more heavily loaded against them.
	There have been two references to the injustice perpetrated when people serve enormous lengths in prison and are proved at the end to be innocent, although I accept that the Bill might not be the right vehicle to tackle that. The Stephen Downing case was mentioned. There was another case, the name of which eludes me

Hilary Benn: Robert Brown.

Ann Widdecombe: Indeed. That case came to light only recently.
	I am sure that the Minister will understand that if people who have been convicted persist in denying their guilt, they are deemed not to have addressed their offending behaviour and therefore not to have satisfied a necessary criterion for release. That means that the small handful of people who have been wrongly convicted and who face substantial sentences have no hope while they persist in their innocence. Although I accept that there is no quick and easy solution, because we do require people to address their offending behaviour, that rule needs to be reconsidered because we have had not one but two cases in which people have served huge sentences, and in Stephen Downing's case it was 27 years.
	The Bill contains a measure to release criminal records to juries before a verdict. That is an extremely unwelcome development. The circumstances in which it can happen at the moment are limited and are especially relevant when a co-defendant might be prejudiced if the information is not available. However, the proposed widening of that rule will have extremely dangerous implications. Juries on the whole are diligent. Like many other hon. Members, I have sat on a jury. I was involved in a series of trials in the Crown court and remember that we were told not once, but twice to disregard things because they should never have been said. We may have been saintly and tried as hard as possible to ignore those comments, but we had heard them.
	In one case, a damaging piece of information was slipped in by a clever lawyer. We found out that although the man before us was pleading not guilty, a co-defendant had pleaded guilty. It was not the sort of crime in which one could be guilty and the other could be not guilty. They had either both done it or neither had done it. The judge told us to disregard the comment, but we knew. In our deliberations thereafter, no matter how hard we tried to carry out an academic exercise in weighing up an argument without that information, it came up time and time again. Only a jury of saints and angels could say, XBut they still have to prove that he committed this particular crime, and not allow a long list of previous convictions to give weight to their decision.
	It is a central tenet of our justice system that someone must be proved guilty beyond all reasonable doubt. When a person sits in the dock, he is innocent of the crime that is attributed to him until it has been proved beyond all reasonable doubt, irrespective of his previous record. If a person has done nine burglaries in the past three years, it does not follow that he is guilty of the 10th. I see the Minister writing and I know what is about to come. If a person has committed acts of domestic violence it does not follow that they have committed the act of which they stand accused.
	Suppose, for example, that a man had committed two assaults on his wife, and on the second occasion the judge said to him, XThis is a very serious matter and if you come before the law again you will face a custodial sentence. It is possible that if relations with his wife continued to deteriorate, quite understandably in the circumstances, she might be tempted to say, XI am going to get rid of you for some time. I shall say that you hit me. The jury could then be told that the man was in the habit of assaulting his wife. I submit that it is impossible to maintain the view that somebody is innocent if we load the dice against them by laying open their past offences.

David Kidney: Will the right hon. Lady give way?

Ann Widdecombe: I will, but I want first to respond to a specific point made by the hon. and learned Member for Dudley, North (Ross Cranston) which is relevant to what I just said. He said that already, in juries' minds, if good character is not adduced there is an awareness that something is amiss and that the person must have erred before. That is true, but they do not know what that person has done. If a person has a 20-year-old conviction, which under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 is long since spent, they cannot be said in court to have a good character. The jury has no clue as to the seriousness of the offences indicated by the omission of good character. This provision is not at all the samejuries will be given that information.

Ross Cranston: Will the right hon. Lady give way?

Ann Widdecombe: Yes, but first I must give way to the hon. Member for Stafford (Mr. Kidney), as I promised.

David Kidney: I was struck by the right hon. Lady's example of the jury who, according to the rules, should not have known that the co-accused was pleading guilty to the offence, a fact that was very material to their considerations, as she told us. In view of that, is she satisfied that the existing rules are perfectly adequate?

Ann Widdecombe: No, but there is no need to make them worse.

Ross Cranston: The point is that I said that the jury might know that a defendant had previous convictions, but they might not have appreciated that fact. However, is not the right hon. Lady's point an argument to the contrary, in that it may help the jury to know the specific offences committed by a defendant rather than simply to be left in the dark about how serious or trivial those previous convictions may be?

Ann Widdecombe: No, I do not agree. The burden must be on the prosecution to prove beyond all reasonable doubt that a particular crime, not a type of crime, was committed by a particular person. That must be the touchstone in determining whether a person is innocent or guilty.
	I do not think that one can reasonably put before a jury a long record of similar offences and not expect that to be taken strongly into account, even if it affects only the jury's attitude, because of course juries do not make decisions simply by weighing facts; they are directed to consider the bearing of a person and which version of events they prefer. A certain amount of gut instinct applies in jury deliberations, as I am sure the hon. and learned Gentleman is aware. Once a material fact about previous convictions has been thrown into the cauldron, it is difficult for the jury to lay that to one side and simply consider whether or not the defendant committed the crime in question.
	I also submit, in the short time available to me, that this provision is an invitation to sloppy policing. It will allow the police to think that a defendant has a record as long as their arm, so a jury will not be sympathetic and they are more than likely to convict because they will not think that they are doing much damagethe accused is a criminal anyway and is likely to commit another crime at some point.
	It must be central to our justice system that one comes to court as an innocent person, no matter what one's past record, and a case is made meticulously, beyond all reasonable doubt and not on the balance of probabilities, that one committed a particular crime. If that principle is not adhered to, we will be giving up a major and important civil liberty.

Brian Sedgemore: I must confess that until today I had not considered the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) one of life's civil libertarians, but it just goes to show that there is hope of redemption for us all because I enjoyed the whole of her speech. It will not do her any good, but there we are.
	The Home Secretary was so emollient that there were times when I wanted to scream. Who put the real Home Secretary into a box, gift wrapped it and labelled it, XMerry Christmas to you all? What happened to the Rottweiler that eats lawyers for breakfast, lunch, tea and dinner?
	I went through the Bill carefully and searched its every clause and subsection for a guiding principle, but I could find none. I then dug deep for any enduring values that might have enthused its progenitors, but there were none. Maybe, I thought to myself, this Bill has been inspired by noble ideas, ancient and modern. Alas, I was disappointed again.
	Eventually, the secret behind the Bill emerged in the newspapers. The Bill, so the spin-meisters told journalists, is designed to refocus the criminal justice system in the interest of victims. As Labour Members have said, that is nonsense. The Home Secretary is also reported to have said that the Bill will push up the conviction rate, and that is even worse nonsense. If, indeed, he really wanted to introduce legislation significantly to push up the conviction rate, and I am not advocating this, he would need to abolish our adversarial system of justice and, with it, the presumption of innocence. Let us all pray that he does not read this speech tomorrow.
	My complaint about the Home Secretary's approach, and it is a serious one, is that where there is a clash, as there often is in these cases, between utilitarianism and individual rights, the Home Secretary always comes down in favour of utilitarianism. I shall develop that argument in a moment. Throughout the Bill, he wages war on liberty in certain important respects with the determination of the zealot and the understanding of one who has forsaken the scales of justice for the dead weight of popular prejudice.
	Let us take, for example, trial by jury. Everyone knows that removing the right to trial by jury, whether in the old plans, the new plans or the plans that will be introduced in the next Session, will lead to more innocent people being convicted, but no one has yet been able to explain to me how convicting the innocent helps the victim. On the contrary, it shows a contempt for victims that beggars belief. It is a cruel deception on victims born of political psycho-babble, of which we get all too much from the Home Office, as we can see from its list of Bills since 1997.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Wirral, West (Stephen Hesford) asked the shadow Home Secretary whether there is a point of principle about jury trials. There is indeed a point of principle about jury trials, which is explained concisely and lucidly by Lord Scott of Foscote in his judgment in Grobbelaar v. News Group Newspapers Ltd. and Anotherthe case of the cheating goaliewhen he said:
	XJudges have not always in the history of our justice system been seen to be independent of the executive. The independence from the executive of prosecuting authorities has not always been apparent and still today is regarded with some cynicism by some people. So it is not surprising that the role of juries in the criminal justice system is widely regarded as constituting a key and necessary protection for the citizens of this country from unfair and oppressive prosecution.
	One cannot get a much better principle than that: protecting the citizen from unfair and oppressive prosecution.
	As has been said, the argument about the limited number of cases is not good in logic, and I have a nagging doubt that once we open the door, we may see other such Bills. Of course, we know in this case about the Home Secretary's previous bad character and previous convictions. He is, after all, the person who came before the House barely a year ago and told us that we need not worry because he was going to abolish jury trials only for lesser offences. Now he comes here and tells us that we do not have to worry because he will abolish jury trials only for a few very serious offences. I dare say that following next year's Queen's Speech he will say, XAll I have in mind is the abolition of jury trials for middle-ranking offences. The Home Secretary, I suspect, may agree with Lord Thomas Denham, a man of no consequence and little intellect, who said in his judgment on O'Connell v. the Queen 150 years ago:
	XTrial by jury itself . . . will be a delusion, a mockery and a snare.
	Lord Denham, an authoritarian by nature, was concerned, as the Home Secretary may sometimes be, about the fact that juries have independent minds that cannot be controlled by the Executive or judicial elitesthank God for that, say most of us.
	According to the philosophy of an acerbic 18th century writer of letters, whose identity was hidden behind the soubriquet XJunius:
	XThe injustice done to an individual is sometimes of service to the public.
	Some say that Junius was Edmund Burke, others that he was Lord Shelburne, but I believe that he was our current Home Secretary in an earlier incarnation. Some of the Bill's provisions, including those on admitting prejudicial hearsay evidence and accounts of bad character, including the defendant's previous acquittals, come into Junius's category of causing injustice to individuals in the interests of some unstated higher good. We should challenge the Home Secretary on what higher good he is seeking to achieve in the Bill.
	Sadly, the Home Secretary's predilection for the philosophy of Junius was evident in the Anti-Terrorism, Crime And Security Act 2001, in which he paved the way for locking up foreigners indefinitely without charge, trial or sentence. Once a Home Secretary starts to erode civil liberties, it becomes easier to repeat the process and more difficult for people like me to shame him as the perpetrator. If the prosecution is unable to prove its case in a criminal trial, either because it does not have one or because it has been slipshod in marshalling the evidence, there is no better and more unjust way to enable it to secure a conviction than by allowing both a list of the defendant's previous convictions and an account of his bad character, which could deface the principles of fair trial in England and Wales. How the slaughter of innocents in those cases will refocus the criminal justice system in favour of victims is something that my enfeebled mind cannot comprehend. No doubt, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, Central (Hilary Benn), will explain it in his winding-up speech.
	I believe that civilisation depends on the holy trinity of justice, freedom and liberty. People who, like the Home Secretary, seek to separate justice from freedom and liberty soon find themselves, albeit inadvertently, going down the road of barbarism. I do not know of any Labour Back Bencher who wants to go down that road yet, in a bizarre refutation of conscience and belief, we shall tonight shut out the warning of the director of Liberty, who only accentuated the obvious when he said:
	XIn years to come as more innocent people emerge after years in prison caused by these plans, we'll wonder how Parliament let this attack on justice get into law.
	Only a few days ago, on 24 November 2002, John Rawlsone of the foremost political philosophers of our eradied. His message to the Home Secretary would have been that the loss of freedom for some can never be made right by a greater good shared by others. In affirming the priority of the right over the good, he would tell the Home Secretary that major aspects of the Bill are morally, politically and philosophically flawed, as they are based on the priority of utilitarianism over individual rights. I would simply warn the Home Secretary that if he is unwilling to maintain justice, justice may well be unwilling to maintain him. 6.44 pm

Peter Lilley: It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Hackney, South and Shoreditch (Mr. Sedgemore), who followed me when I made my maiden speech and graciously honoured the conventions of the House by congratulating me. Without any need to apply convention, I congratulate him on his speechI agree with it very much.
	My constituents want serious and substantive measures to punish the guilty and protect the innocent, and will be as puzzled as contributors to our debate by the insubstantial nature of the Bill's provisions on tackling crime. Those provisions appear to be the fruit of an unholy and cynical alliance between tabloid populismwhich is designed to sound tough on crime but has no substantial effect on it at alland modernising zeal, which, in practice, will undermine the liberties that have protected the innocent in this country for centuries.
	The Gracious Speech referred to safeguarding
	Xthe interests of victims, witnesses and communities.
	It may be significant that no mention is made of safeguarding the innocent. Indeed, I believe that the Home Secretary recently equated wrongful conviction of the innocent with a failure to convict the guilty. My constituents do not make that equationthey recognise that the risk of convicting innocent people is not merely abhorrent but will result in the guilty remaining at large, free to go on committing crime. Ministers foster the belief that few crimes result in convictions because the courts fail to convictthat is why they want to change the court process. In fact, as we have heard, more than 95 per cent. of cases in magistrates courts result in conviction and more than 87 per cent. of cases in Crown courts result in conviction.
	The Government want to increase those conviction rates even further, but make no mention of the fact that more than an average of more than 4,000 convictions every year for the past 10 years have been quashed. Innocent people have been found to be wrongly convicted. The Government are not anxious to change that in futurethey are not worried that 4,000 guilty people may be at large because 4,000 or more innocent people have been wrongly convicted. In practice, the measures introduced by the Government will undermine the protection of the innocent, which is an important principle.
	I do not necessarily oppose change to things such as jury trial or centuries-old rules on double jeopardy, but anything that has existed for a long period and has served us well should be changed only if the change can be shown to be necessary to produce a substantial improvement; if it has been well researched; and if it is clearly well motivated. A number of Government measures, I am afraid, do not pass any of those tests. As the hon. Member for Hackney, South and Shoreditch said, the Government cannot complain if we refer to their previous convictions. On the matter of jury trial, they have two serious previous convictions and have attempted to remove people's right to choose jury trial in either-way cases.
	In the light of that attempt to restrict jury trial, we must evaluate the four measures that the Government wish to introduce, all of which would undermine the use of jury trial by stealth. First, they want to increase the sentencing powers of magistrates courts from six months to 12 months, although that is accompanied by a welcome quid pro quo that magistrates will no longer be able to refer to higher courts for sentencing. The net effect, however, is to reduce the number of jury trials, the Government anticipate, by 6,000 a year.
	The remaining three measures are designed to reduce the use of jury trial in the most serious cases of indictment. The Government propose that defendants be given the option to choose not to be tried by jury. Frankly, it is bizarre of a Government who have previously justified their attempt to abolish the right to choose trial by jury instead of in a magistrates court, with the principle that it is wrong for defendants to have the right to choose jury trial, now to say that as a matter of principle they will introduce choice so that people can choose not to have jury trial in the most serious cases.
	The only unifying feature in both instances is, as I pointed out to the Home Secretaryalthough he did not take the pointthat the Government want to move in a direction that will result in fewer jury trials. It is odd that the previous Home Secretary described our system of allowing a measure of choice in either-way cases as wrong in principle, Xfrankly eccentric and almost unique in the world. It is now said that he was misleading the House. Far from the system being frankly eccentric and almost unique, we are told that it is almost universal in other common law jurisdictions for there to be an element of choice. It is proposed to introduce that element of choice in trials by indictment.
	Should we accept the conversion to choice, welcome it and say that if it works overseas we will accept it? That would be unwise. The conversion is being introduced by those who want to reduce the use of jury trial. There is the danger that once it is introduced, the same arguments that were applied to the right to elect for jury trial rather than the case appearing before a magistrates court will be used in cases where people continue to opt for jury trial rather than trial by the judge. It will be said, XThey are merely using it to manipulate the system. There should be trial by judge. That would be more economic, for example.
	All the other jurisdictions have entrenched the right to jury trial in their constitutions. They are safe from a slippery slope. According to their constitutions, there cannot be the complete erosion of jury trial. We do not have that protection. Instead, the House is that protection. The House should not start down the slippery slope.
	Another measure that the Government propose to reduce the number of jury trials is to give prosecutors the option, if they consider that a case would be too complex a burden on a jury, to ask for a trial without a jury. It seems odd that prosecutors should be made the defenders of jurors' rights and convenience. However, that is the proposal. It gives the prosecutor an incentive to make a case long and complex and the documentation excessive if he or she wants to do without a jury trial and thinks that a judge is more likely to arrive at a favourable judgment.
	That is bad because we should be trying to speed and simplify such trials. On page 17 of XTaking Liberties, which is available on my website, a senior judge states:
	XBrevity and simplicity are the handmaidens of justice, and length and complexity are its enemies.
	We should not give prosecutors an incentive to make their cases long and complex, especially as in the past four years the Serious Fraud Office has achieved a 92 per cent. success rate in obtaining convictions as against a 57 per cent. success rate in contested trials before jurors generally.
	The final measure that the Government are proposing to erode the use of jury trial is to give the court the option, again on the application of the prosecution, to forgo a jury trial if there is a risk of jury tampering. As far as I can establish, the proposal was not even put forward by Lord Justice Auld. He put forward the most comprehensive proposals for reducing jury trial ever previously known short of abolishing juries, but he had not thought of the measure that the Government are putting forward. Presumably, that is because he had not found any evidence that it was needed. Nor have the Government put forward any evidence of the need for it.
	It means that effectively judges will say, XThese are the sort of people who might tamper with juries. Therefore, I will not give them the protection of a jury; I will judge them myself. That is not likely to encourage respect for the law. Would it not be better to say that if there is such a risk, let us consider the option of giving juries anonymity rather than doing without juries?
	The Government's measures are all moving in one direction, which is the decline in the use of juries. They are mistaken in wanting to move in that direction because juries are not only the best method of trying cases but the only method that we have as citizens, apart from our vote, in participating in government and our system of justice. About 187,000 people a year participate in juries. That is a good thing and something to be encouraged and increased, not diminished. When Tocqueville was analysing democracy in America and Anglo Saxon countries and saying why it was so important, he said:
	XThe jury is above all a political institution. The jury plays an incredibly important part in forming popular judgment and improving people's natural understanding of the law.
	I believe that we reduce its role at our peril.
	I move on to double jeopardy. The two arguments in favour of diminishing the use of the rule are that the evidence of DNA could be available and the evidence of confessions post-conviction could be used. It is important to understand that neither case will apply to any offences committed in future. Only retrospective offences will apply. In any offence committed in future, DNA will be available at the first trial. If it is not brought up then, it will not be a justification for a second trial.
	Confessions after conviction will no longer occur if we do not have the double jeopardy rule. We are talking about changing a rule to bring about convictions for offences that have already occurred and not increasing in any way the likelihood of

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order.

Robert Marshall-Andrews: It is a pleasure to be able to welcome some limited parts of the Bill. I do not want to pick them out individually, but there is the abolition of magistrates courts' right to commit for sentence. That is long overdue and ends the iniquity of one court deciding on guilt and allowing another court to pass sentence. There are some parts of the Bill that are good and some that are bad, but in truth not that bad. In that I include the rules for the admission of previous convictions. It is with great trepidation that I disagree with my good and hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, South and Shoreditch (Mr. Sedgemore). If we make allowance for the deplorable drafting of clauses 84 to 92, it appears that what is postulated in the Bill is not very different from the rules that we already apply in criminal courts.
	In a criminal case, it is often an enormous release to put our form in. The way in which we run a defence is often so gravely inhibited by not being able to do so that it can be a significant and positive disadvantage. To say to a jury, XYes, I've done it four times before, but I didn't do this one. I'm only here because I've done it four times before and the Old Bill picked me up, is not a bad defence, especially if there is not much else to say.
	There are parts of the Bill, however, that are not just bad, but are conspicuously and dreadfully bad. The provisions that are an assault on jury trial represent the most serious infringement of fundamental liberty that has come before Parliament in recent history. They are substantially greater than the mode of trial provisions, and I shall echo what my hon.and learnedFriend the Member for Hackney, South and Shoreditch said. There is a savage irony. When we were fighting mode of trial Bills 1 and 2 to the death, we were told repeatedly by the Home Secretary that our opposition was ill founded because they would apply only to the less serious offences in the criminal calendar. Now that the Government have been beaten to a standstill twice, they are attacking the beast from the other end. We are told that only the most serious offences in the criminal calendar will be decided by the judge. In making such provisions, I fear that the Government show a savage ignorance of the centrality and essential nature of the jury in our adversarial system. The provisions will undoubtedly bring judges into serious disrepute. In their current form they are impossible to apply in the trial process, and they will result in many cases being successfully brought in Europe. Apart from that, they are fine.

Lady Hermon: For many years, non-jury trials have taken place in the Diplock courts for serious terrorist offences. I hope that the hon. and learned Gentleman is not implying that judges have been brought into serious disrepute in Northern Ireland because of those trials?

Robert Marshall-Andrews: No, I am not. I acknowledge immediately the special circumstances that apply in Northern Ireland. The hon. Lady will forgive me if I do not get into an argument about Diplock courts, which are a different matter.
	The centrality of the jury in our system cannot be overstated. It was said recently that jury trial does not go back to Magna Cartait has formed part of our criminal justice system since well before then. It has been suggested that it dates back to 1855. That is false and misleading. On the contrary, in 1855, people were allowed to opt for summary trial, not jury trial, and either-way offences were created. Jury trial, which was the only mode of trial for centuries, did not always result in acquittal. It has not been a soft option. My hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, South and Shoreditchto whom I shall not refer againwill know, because he is named after the famous battle, that the bloody assizes in the west country were conducted by means of jury trials. Doubtless the Home Secretary would thoroughly approve of those assizes.
	The great benefit of jury trial is not simply that it is fair and perceived to be fair, and that it involves the citizen in the process of justice, but that it is profoundly modern. It is one of our most ancient rights and liberties, but also the most modern. How many institutions do we seek to modernise by bringing in the ordinary citizen to participate in running them? It is our permanent aim to bring the citizen in to health, educationand, indeed, politics. Yet that has happened in the law for nearly 8,000 years. Jury trial is therefore our most modern institution. The citizen is empowered, and thereby ennobled.
	Our adversarial system means that the jury is vital. We are an adversarial people. Like the court, the Chamber is an adversarial arena. That is the way we do business. The Government decree, and they are opposednot necessarily from the Conservative Benches. Governments should be opposed. We do business in our courts in the same way. We do not have an inquisitorial system. I suspect that the judge to whom my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin) referred was really saying that we do seek the truth in our criminal justice system. In our adversarial system, the state brings its case, which it must prove. If it does not prove the case, that is the end of the matter.
	How can the state bring its case in front of someone who is its agent and employee? The principle of our jury system is that the state brings its case, but must prove it in front of the citizen. To suggest that one can create an inquisitorial system by simply ripping out jury trial is the precise equivalent of claiming that one can remove the wheels from a car and thereby create a boat. The checks and balances that are implicit in an inquisitorial system are absent from the system that we operate. Judges cannot sit as judges of fact as well as of admissibility, fairness and law.
	The change is unnecessary. None of us who has laboured in jury trials in serious fraud cases has the slightest doubt that juries understand perfectly well the issues involved in serious fraud. That is almost always because the question of whether serious fraud has been committed is not an issue, and the case is a therefore a whodunnit. Juries cannot be surpassed for defining who done it.
	Jury tampering and nobbling are rare in our system, because it is almost impossible to corrupt an entire jury. That is the strength of the system, and the reason for having 12 people. Corrupting, bullying, bribing or intimidating 12 people is almost impossible. We have an incorruptible judiciary and we are unique in the world in being able to say that. We have the worst system in the worldexcept for all the others.
	One of the reasons for the incorruptibility of our judges is the jury system. There is no point in attempting to bribe, bully, cajole or intimidate judges, because they have nothing to do with the findings of fact at the end of a trial. However, if we allow judges to sit alone, they will become the subject of bribery, bullying and intimidation. Of course, 99.9 per cent. will resist, but if one goes, the whole system that we value in this country above any other institution will be at risk. There will be strong judges, who get a reputation for permanently favouring the Crown, and weak judges, against whom the accusation will be levelled that they are buyable and bent. Before we know where we are, our whole criminal justice system will be brought into disrepute and disarray. Hon. Members must defend our system.
	Of course the changes will not work. Nothing has been thought through. What happens if a judge is told that a jury has been tampered with and the prosecution places an application before him? It will be heard in secret because of the public interest immunity rules. If the judge, after hearing the application in secret, decides that there is a risk of tampering by one defendant out of, for example, 10, will all 10 lose the right to jury trial? Will we have two trials under two different systems for the same offence? The judge cannot try the case. If he does, the trial will be rendered a nullity by Europe, because the judge and the prosecution are privy to information that is not available to the defence. That applies to every application for PII in any trial.
	I have reached the end of my time, and I have not yet mentioned double jeopardy. We lawyers have an odd vested interest if we are against the change to the double jeopardy rule, which will double the number of trials available for us. However, we are against it for the same reasons of liberty that I have outlined. Let me end by saying that one cannot reduce human wickedness by reducing human liberty. That has never been done in history. Totalitarian states, where liberty is completely curtailed, may reduce crime, but they do so by the immediate equation of transferring wickedness from the individual to the state.

Lady Hermon: I must confess that I have lost track of the number of criminal justice measures that have come before the House in the past 10 years. I would dread being a law student who had to sit through a criminal law lecture and try to keep up to speed with what has happened. I should also hate to be a practitioner or member of a police service who was trying to keep abreast of all the criminal justice legislation.
	Will the Under-Secretary confirm in his winding-up speech that that useful hard-working institution, the Law Commission for England and Wales, which has existed since 1965, has consolidation of criminal justice legislation near the top of its agenda? That would hugely benefit all of us, especially practitioners who have to apply such legislation. The Law Commission's website states:
	XThe Government has said that it sees the enactment of a Code as an important part of its plans to modernise the criminal justice system.
	I would therefore welcome the Under-Secretary's confirmation that codification of the criminal justice system is a top priority.
	It intrigues me that criminal justice is not a devolved issue in Northern Ireland. Our Assembly is suspended at present, but criminal justice is still not a devolved issue, and has not been for a considerable time. It has remained here at Westminster. Will the Minister explain why the Bill does not extend to Northern Irelandand, indeed, why the Hunting Bill that we discussed yesterday does not do so? I should perhaps put it on record that I am probably not speaking for all my colleagues when I ask for the Hunting Bill to be extended to Northern Ireland.
	I am exceedingly concerned about the cost of implementing the Criminal Justice Bill. In an interview in The Times yesterday, Lord Falconer was asked what the financial costs of the Bill would be. He replied:
	XOn current assumptions it will require 1.6 billion over six years.
	Fighting crime involves putting police officers on the streets of our villages, towns and cities. If even a fraction of 1.6 billion were directed towards recruiting more police officers, it would help in the fight against crime. Tinkering with our criminal justice legislation will not.
	When I say Xtinkering, I am referring specifically to two aspects of the Bill that worry me considerably. The first involves double jeopardy. The Minister will be aware that schedule 4 lists 30 very serious offences which, it is proposed, should become exceptions to the double jeopardy rule. At the same time, we are considering the Extradition Bill, which is also the responsibility of the Home Secretary. I am sure that the Minister will be familiar with clause 12 of that Bill, which is headed, XRule against double jeopardy. It states:
	XA person's extradition to a category 1 territory
	I will not go into that subject now
	Xis barred by reason of the rule against double jeopardy.
	There are no exceptions to that. Will the Minister confirm that the one hand actually knows what the other hand is doing, and that either there will be 30 exceptions when it comes to extradition cases, or the double jeopardy rule will remain intact for all purposes and all reasons?
	Furthermore, the 30 crimes listed in schedule 4 of the Criminal Justice Billincluding robbery, armed robbery, rape, murder and manslaughterare all very serious. In our media-driven culture, it is inevitable that all cases involving those crimes will have been given great media attention and will be out in the public domain, particularly when the defendant has been acquitted. For the Court of Appeal to make an application for a retrial, it would have to certify that fresh evidence was both Xnew and compelling. I am extremely troubled by the definition of compelling evidence, as set out in clause 65(3)(c). The clause states that evidence is compelling if the Court of Appeal concludes that
	Xit is highly probable that the person is guilty of the offence.
	When we couple the media attention that has been given to a high-profile case, on acquittal in the first instance, with the conclusion of the Court of Appeal that it is Xhighly probable that the person is guilty, how in heaven's name can the Minister convince the House that the defendant can be guaranteed a fair trial?
	On my second point, I am sure that the Minister will be familiar with the work of Professor Sally Lloyd-Bostock. It is a matter of regret to me that this learned academic is not a constituent of mine, but perhaps we can recruit her to come over to Northern Ireland. She is presently working for the university of Birmingham. Before that, she worked in the Oxford university centre for socio-legal studies. She was commissioned to carry out research for the Home Office in 1995 into the effects on magistrates and juries of the disclosure of previous convictions. In her more recent research paper, headed XThe Lord Chancellor's Department: Research 2000, Dr.now ProfessorSally Lloyd-Bostock concluded:
	XThe results showed clearly that the magistrates' ratings of likely guilt were significantly affected by information about the defendant's prior record . . . Most magistrates thought that neither magistrates nor juries should learn about previous convictions until after the verdict, and felt that the information was dangerously biasing.
	Given that that learned professor is an expert in this field, it ill behoves the Government to set aside research of this quality, carried out by someone who was commissioned to carry it out by the Home Office in 1995 and, more recently, by the Lord Chancellor's Office. I ask the Minister to address the points raised in that research.
	I would like to pick up a couple of points made by other hon. Members. The hon. Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin) rightly drew attention to the fact that what increases our constituents' confidence that crime is being successfully fought is the visibility of police officers on the streets. He mentioned the number of police officers on bicycles. I am not simply asking for the police to be put back on bicycles, although that would be helpful. There is no doubt that, with crime rates rising, our constituents need a sense of confidence that the Government intend to tackle crime. That involves recruiting more police officers, and the visibility of the police officers is the key.
	The hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes) made the valid point that an awful lot of young people should be kept out of the court system and not put into jail, and should instead have to make restoration to the public for whatever crime they have committed. I would draw to the Minister's attention the restorative justice schemes that have now been built into Northern Ireland's criminal justice legislation. We have just had a major review, and the Justice (Northern Ireland) Act 2002 went on to the statute book in July. About one third of that important piece of legislation was dedicated to youth justice, and particularly to accredited restorative justice schemes.
	Let us consider the difficulties that we have had in Northern Ireland with paramilitary violence, including the so-called punishment beatings, which, in one extreme case, involved the crucifixion of a young man. Having had his legs broken, he was nailed to a fence through both hands. We have seen appalling crimes by paramilitaries, both loyalistI have to say that loyalists are utterly ruthlessand republican. They carry out a type of justice in their own right, in which they beat up young people for joyriding and other antisocial crimes. We have tried to deal with this by introducing restorative justice schemes. In my constituency we have an exceedingly good scheme up and running on the Kilcooley estate in Bangor. Those schemes involve the perpetrators of the crimes of vandalism, joyriding or intimidating elderly folkI could go on and list many moremaking reparation to the older person or other victim, and saying sorry. Those are accredited schemes, and I draw the Minister's attention to the possibility of building into future legislation, if not the Bill, restorative justice schemes, which have worked in Northern Ireland when they are accredited.

David Kidney: It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon), and I begin with the same point: we have had a proliferation of criminal justice laws in this country since 1984. Sadly, a lot have not stood the test of time, so it will be interesting to see whether the Bill suffers a fate similar to the majority of that legislation or proves more lasting.
	I draw attention to a couple of points that will give the Bill a lasting nature, at least in certain areasthe inclusion of the principles of sentencing and the establishment of the Sentencing Guidelines Council, which is an important development for the future. Furthermore, a Bill has begun its life in the other place that will unify magistrates court and Crown court structures and which, equally, will bring significant change. So the package that we shall deal with in this Session contains lasting elements.
	I begin my detailed comments by referring to jury trials. It might be helpful to point out that this country uses three classifications of offence. Summary-only offences, by their very nature, do not involve jury trial, as they may be tried only by magistrates summarily. On either-way offences, the defendant has the right to choose either summary trial before a magistrate or trial before a jury in the Crown court. On indictable-only offences, the defendant gets no choice and must be tried before a jury in the Crown court.
	I set that out to show the difference between this Bill and the previous Bills through which the Government attempted to make changes to jury trial. The mode of trial Bills aimed at those either-way offences and provided that, instead of the defendant having the choice of where to be tried, the court would say whether that person could be tried by jury.
	I remind the House that I was fanatically opposed to that proposal on principle, and I spoke and voted against the Bill that was introduced in this House to give it effect. I was overlooked for service on the Committee, but I returned to the issue on Report and even tabled an amendment, which some Members will recall. It is a great delight to me that the Government have abandoned that way of proceeding on trials and have introduced in this Bill my amendment on magistrates not committing people to the Crown court for sentence if they have dealt with the trial themselves. I feel happy about the Government's attitude to the Bill, although a couple of Members have had difficulty with accepting yes for an answer, even though the Government have said that that is not their intention and it is not what they are doing through this legislation.
	I am happy with the changes that have been made there, but there is worry around the House over those offences that are indictable only, but for which the Government propose some change to jury trial. It is worth saying a word about them. On long and complex cases, the matter involves degree rather than principle, because there would be a danger of a jury losing the battlelosing the thread of what they are there to do because of the sheer weight of the proceedingsowing to a war of attrition in only a small minority of cases. That would occur, I hasten to add, only because of the tactics of the parties to the trial and not because of any difficulty for the jury in coping with complex facts and situations. I entirely agree with those Members who said that jurors are sensible people who can take in a lot. Therefore it follows that I am talking about exceptional cases in which it is right that there should be no jury trial.
	The same goes for jury tampering. Surely it is unacceptable to the House that somebody could get an acquittal by tampering with the jury. Obviously, the response normally stops short of saying that there will be no jury to try a certain case, as we can protect a jury and ensure that anyone caught tampering with it is treated as one who has committed a serious criminal offence; and we can limit the number of cases in which a judge has to say, XThere is no way that we can have a fair trial with a jury because of the attempt to interfere with that jury. Again, a small number of cases would be involved, but being able to give such a response would be useful weapon in the judge's armoury.

Dominic Grieve: The hon. Gentleman will have noted the comments on the difficulties that would be likely to arise in practice when a judge continued to hear a case after a jury had been discharged because of tampering. I suggest that, in reality, it would be necessary to start again. He may also agree that, in reality, tampering involving 12 jurors would be unlikely, although it is likely that such a jury would be unable to return a verdict. However, if adequate protection were in place and supplied for the retrial, especially if there were a fear that a previous jury had been tampered with, the chances are that justice would be properly done with a jury. There would be no need for a judge to sit on his own.

David Kidney: The hon. Gentleman's points are contradictory. I agree with and accept the first, which is that it would be difficult for a judge to continue the trial knowing what the judge knows, as he or she would be prejudiced. I do not agree with his second point, however, as there would be few cases in which the judge said, XNo amount of protection and no amount of retrial is satisfactory for the conduct of justice in this case. I believe that it needs no jury and a judge-only trial. That may happen, but only in a small number of cases.
	The third consequence of the Bill for judge-only trials would arise if the defendant chose such a trial. I spent all my time in the debates on the previous Bill arguing that the defendant's choice should be upheld, so I find it difficult to disagree with the Government on that point now, as they have come round to my view. Disagreeing over that would be an unusual choice, although I see that such events could arise from time to time.

Dominic Grieve: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way again. He refers to upholding defendant choicewhether he should have jury trial or notbut the Government have included a rider that that choice will be denied in certain cases. Does not that in some way negate their argument, which is, XWe are offering you a choice between two systems that we consider to be equally justifiedit is up to you.?

David Kidney: May we return to that in Committee? I understand the point but, equally, I understand the Government's worry about some people appearing to have a cosy relationship with judgesthey do not need a jury because they will get off if they know the judge.
	I want to include a footnote on jury trials in either-way cases, as some provisions, which nobody has objected to tonight, would reduce the number of such trialsagain, very modestly. The first would extend magistrates' power of sentence from six months to a maximum of 12. Magistrates would turn away fewer cases that they would have sent to Crown court for trial and keep them for themselves. That would reduce the number of jury trials in itself.
	If the provision on a defendant requesting an advance indication of sentence survives to the statute book and if magistrates agree to give such an indication, that would convert some defendants to staying with the magistrates rather than going to Crown court for trial. That, too, would reduce the number of jury trials. For the same reason, custody plus might tempt some people to stay in the magistrates court. Interestingly, there has been no controversy in the House about a smaller number of jury trials resulting from any of those measures.
	I hesitate to step into tonight's other controversies. The double jeopardy proposals are very much a response from the whole country to DNA being discovered as a reliable test that almost certainly provides proof positive of someone's guilt of an offence which could not be proved previously because such technology was not available. It was said earlier that this is probably a passing change that involves a few cases in which DNA evidence is available and helps to secure a conviction that could not be secured before. I am happy with that analysis, although none of us can foretell the future or what scientific advances will be made after today. That may mean that the provision remains valid for many years, even after those few DNA cases have been mopped up by the provision.
	Tonight's other controversy is the introduction of the defendant's bad character. Interestingly, my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Medway (Mr. Marshall-Andrews) takes no objection to that one. I am happy about that, because I shall take no objection either, provided that the safeguards are right. That matter should be hammered out in Committee.
	Clearly, we have been introducing evidence of a defendant's bad character in cases for over a century. A common-law rule and two Acts dating from 1865 and 1898 have permitted it in some circumstances. Nevertheless, we can surely ask from time to time whether the current rules are adequate. I do not think they are, and I think we are entitled to change them slightly if that is what we believe is right in order to ensure fair trials as between prosecution and defence.
	The Bill gives us an opportunity to rehabilitate community sentences as a genuine alternative to prison, and to reduce the appallingly large prison population. That means, however, that we must make the community options robust. It does not help us if the media can report that fines need not be paid, and it does not help us if nothing happens to people who break the conditions attached to community sentences. The Government are right to pay attention to such issues, although extra resources will of course be required. The hon. Member for North Down asked for all the resources to go to police officers, but some should go to, for instance, the National Probation Service, so that it can supervise community sentences and their conditions. Otherwise, people may often break the conditions, which will bring the service into disrepute. It will also mean that more people are sent to prison, because that is the only thing that will satisfy the public mood.
	I want to say something about what is, in a sense, a local issue. When I met local magistrates and their clerks to discuss the Bill, I was very pleased with their response. They like the extra sentencing powers that they will haveboth the powers relating to imprisonment and the wider range of conditions they can attach to community sentences. They also likesubject to the detailthe proposal for a unified system for magistrates courts and Crown courts. That, I thought, was a positive response. Stafford currently exceeds the national average for fine collection, but the magistrates would like the Government to continue their financial support for fine enforcers so that they can maintain that good record.
	The magistrates commented that recent media reporting of inadequate arrangements for fine collection had affected their ability to collect fines. People believed newspaper reports that the payment of fines was now optional, and did not pay. That is an interesting message for reporters.
	My last point, in fact, concerns reporting. Since when has it been right for most cases heard in my local magistrates court to go unreported by the local media? I think the reporting of cases is part of the fair administration of justice: people should know which members of their community have been to court, and have been convicted. That is the whole point of the saying that justice must not only be done, but be seen to be done. Let me please the Society of Editors by asking the Government not to overlook the need of reporters to be able to report cases. There are substantial obstacles preventing journalists from doing their job in magistrates courtsan issue that I may be able to pursue in more detail if I am fortunate enough to be a member of the Committee on this occasion.

Nick Gibb: Bills of this sort worry me hugely. Like the hon. Member for Hackney, South and Shoreditch (Mr. Sedgemore), I see no philosophical underpinning for many of the proposed changes. That does not apply to most of the legislation with which we must deal.
	The Bill is supported by both Labour and the Conservatives, and of course it contains much that is good. Nevertheless, ending the double-jeopardy rule, allowing hearsay evidence and the admissibility of previous convictions constitute huge changes to our legal system, and, as far as I can tell, they are being proposed for reasons of administrative simplicity rather than on the basis of a deeply held conviction that they are right. They are not about securing justice.
	These measures do not form part of Labour's traditional view of justice, or of the judicial system; nor do they emanate from Conservative principles. Indeed, I believe that Conservative principles clearly state the opposite. F.A. Hayekwho has had a profound influence on much Conservative thinking over the past 30 yearspointed out that ancient, and therefore sometimes bafflingly obscure, traditions, tenets and principles had evolved over the centuries as a result of hundreds of thousands of instances of experience, and that the cumulative knowledge gained from those was far beyond the capacity of any one human mind. We may not even understand the reason for a particular tradition until it has been abolished, when the errors and catastrophes that it was designed to avoid start to occur again.
	That does not mean that rules cannot evolve. Of course they can evolve and change, particularly through specific precedents in the Court of Appeal. That does not, however, mean the wholesale change proposed in the Bill. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (David Davis) said in a briefing to The Independent in May 2000, ending the double-jeopardy rule would be
	Xa serious blow for justice in this country.
	He said that Britain's Xunbreakable tradition that all citizens are equal before the law and innocent until proved guilty would be Xseriously damaged if the rule was scrapped. He added
	XIt is a reform I cannot and will not support.
	So where do these measures come from? They certainly do not come from philosophical belief, but nor, it seems, do they come from experts and practitioners in the legal profession. We have heard from members of that profession in the Chamber today, but both the Bar Council and the Criminal Bar Association strongly oppose the measures to end double jeopardy. According to their briefing,
	XThere is a real risk of harassment from the state and press where both believe that the acquitted defendant should be retried . . . There is a real risk that disappointed investigators, particularly in high profile cases may well wish immediately to recommence investigations after an acquittal, particularly if there is pressure from the media, victims or politicians. Those with previous convictions known to the investigating officer would also be a target. Officers with a personal animus against an accused may wish to pursue him despite an acquittal.
	If these measures do not stem from philosophical belief and are not demanded by the practitioners, they can only have come from that source of ideas that parties can draw on only when in governmentHome Office civil servants, bless them. I fear that once again we are being presented with a Bill based on administrative convenience, with no regard for the historic safeguards that formed the rock on which our freedoms stand. It is a rock that has been chipped away by both parties with increasing speed over the past few years. This is yet another Home Office Bill that deals only with the immediate symptoms, and does nothing to tackle the roots of crime.
	The real problem that the Government should bemaybe areseeking to address in the Bill is the problem of rising crime. Whatever Government figures may suggest, there is no doubt that crime is rising. Britain now experiences more crimes per 100,000 of the population than the United States, Italy, Germany and a host of other countries. The Government may from time to time produce figures that show something else, but I believe that the fact that we have dealt with 12 criminal justice Bills since 1997 speaks volumes.
	The question is, how do we stem the rise in crime? Clause 126 sets out XPurposes of sentencing, which it says are punishment, reduction of crime including deterrence, protection of the public and reparation. I consider deterrence overwhelmingly the most important of those four principles, but if prison is to be a deterrent sentences must be of appropriate and sufficient length. Over the past 30 years prison sentences have become shorter, initially as a left-wing experiment to test the validity of prison but later because, under both parties, there was an attempt to control the ever-growing prison population as crime continued to rise. For example, the maximum prison sentence for burglary is 14 years, but the average sentence is just 22 months.
	As a libertarian Conservative I strongly believe in the maximum freedom of the individual. I believe in keeping the number of laws, particularly criminal laws, to the minimum necessary to preserve that freedom. Once a person breaks those laws, however, he should be subject to severe penalties. I believe that the increase in crime over the past 30 years is largely due to the increasing leniency of sentencing, and I am optimistic that the Home Secretary agrees.
	For many habitual criminals, a prison sentence is merely an occupational hazard rather than a life-changing catastrophe. Eighteen months in prison is a risk worth taking; eight full years is something else.

Andrew Turner: I find my hon. Friend's argument compelling, but he has introduced a mechanistic solution to what did appear to be a problem relating to the way in which the bulwarks that society is built on are being undermined. Which is more important, the failure of society to support and educate those who might commit crime, or the failure to punish them sufficiently after the crime has been committed?

Nick Gibb: My hon. Friend makes a good point about recidivism and rehabilitation in prison, but the important point about the poor recidivism rates in this country is that the sentence itself is not a sufficient deterrent.
	I welcome the fact that the Bill contains many provisions to increase maximum sentences, but a lot of discretion will still be left to judges. My concern is that the Bill may well discourage courts from passing further increases in prison sentences. The US has demonstrated beyond any doubt that raising the level of sentences leads to falling crime. For example, in the US, prison sentences for murder are, on average, three years longer than in England; sentences for rape and for robbery are four years longer; and sentences for assault are almost three years longer. Sentences for burglary are two years longer than in England and Wales. The consequence is that burglary rates in the US have declined dramatically since the mid-1980sfrom about 75 burglaries per 1,000 households to just 28. Violent crime in the US has fallen year on year since 1994, to the lowest level ever recorded by 2001. In 1994, there were 51 episodes of violent crime per 1,000 population; by 2001, the figure had fallen to 24.
	If we in this country are to impose severe penalties on those who have committed crimes, however, we need to be sure that our judicial system is as infallible as humanly possible. We need in place every safeguard possible to avoid errors. We need principles such as the inadmissibility of previous convictions, so that we can be absolutely sure that a jury is not prejudiced in its duty to examine objectively the facts put before it. We need to keep the carefully constructed and evolved set of rules that govern the use of hearsay evidence, to ensure that what the jury is hearing is absolutely what was said. Sweeping away these safeguards will lead to an increase in the number of unsafe convictions, many of which will be traced back to this legislation. Magistrates courts already find 72 per cent. of those tried guilty, and Crown courts find 76 per cent. guilty. As the Financial Times commented recently:
	Xthe number of miscarriages of justice highlighted in recent decades does not suggest that the courts err on the side of gullibility.
	There must be no shortcuts on the way to prison. Once a person is convicted, they should serve a sentence that is commensurate with the crime committed. If the state takes short cuts to get a conviction, the reputation of the judicial system will suffer as people lose faith in its ability to convict only the guilty. Notwithstanding the measures in the Bill, the consequence of that will undoubtedly be a reluctance to impose long prison sentences, because of a vague feeling that convictions are perhaps unsafe. That in turn will mean that conviction and punishment will continue to fail to provide the deterrent necessary to bring rising crime under control. In other words, a Bill designed ostensibly to help cut crime will actually result in crime continuing to rise.
	I believe that the Bill is fundamentally and profoundly flawed. It will fail to deliver what the public wantless crimewhile promising to do the opposite. It will fail to ensure that criminals serve sentences that deter them and others from committing crime in future. The public expect such measures, but I fear that they are not what the Bill will deliver. Instead, it will damage the reputation of the judicial system, and above all it will be responsible for a rise in the number of unsafe convictions and the perpetration of deep injustice.

Alan Hurst: The problem with speaking late on in a debate is not only that most of the good arguments have been made, but so have most of the good jokes. I should begin by declaring an interestthese days, it has to be a vested interestin that I am a partner in a firm of solicitors.
	There are so many aspects of this Bill on which one could comment that the debate could go on for a very long time. With that in mind, I shall seek to address the three salient issues that have troubled Members today, the first of which is, of course, trial by jury. Underlying our comments has been the assumption that every criminal offence can be tried by jury, but as we knowand as my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Mr. Kidney) wisely pointed outmany offences are summary only, and do not have jury choice. It is only in certain bands that such choice is available. I am committed at least to maintaining the existing bands, so that a defendant retains the choice of being tried by jury.
	I accept that the two Bills that came to a sorry end in the previous two Sessions were much more wide ranging than the current proposal. One could argue that the latter is pragmaticthat we are seeking to tidy matters up and to help out jurors, so that they do not have to deliberate for too long, and so that we can create a family friendly jury system. However, I am not certain that juries were ever family friendly. Some things in life are by nature quite hard, and the preservation of some of our essential liberties is sometimes a hard task to follow through in its entirety. The fact that jurors may sometimes be inconvenienced when a trial goes on for a long time may not be a sufficient reason, therefore, to allow a further ebbing of the current jury trial system. On the face of it, such a suggestion seems practical and relatively harmless, but therein lies the danger. When something seems harmless, matters creep forward, but when there is an outright onslaughtsuch as we witnessed in the previous two Billsit is easy to condemn and to say, XWe are not going down that route.
	The question of how to deal with the intimidation of a juror has been well explored and answered fully by other Members, but I would go a little further by arguing that we should consider extending jury trial. In essence, trial by jury has been on the defensive for years. The recent Bills that went the way of the frailty of flesh were not in fact the first attacks on jury trial. Over time, various offences have lost the right to elect trial, and have become summary only. I would argue that one category in particular should have the option of trial by jury: allegations of assault or attack on a police officer or other persons in a position of public trust. I say that because those who are charged with such offences should be judged by their fellow citizens. In other words, cases involving victims who are employees of the state should be judged by the citizenry at large. Legislation passed in the 1960s specifically exempted the assaulting of police officers from those categories involving trial by jury, unless it suited the prosecutor to make the charge of actual bodily harm.

John Taylor: Does the hon. Gentleman think that magistrates tend to be too deferential towards, or too believing of, police officers?

Alan Hurst: That view has been current for many years among those who practise in the criminal courtsprosecutors and defenders alike. For that very reason, in cases where police officers or other public officials are the victims, it is even more important for the defendants to have the right to elect jury trial.
	Prosecutors get a very bad press these days, but in the main they are wily people. In the past few years, it has become the practice that, where the injuries on the victim clearly constitute actual bodily harm, trial by jury can be elected. The prosecutor or the police may well decide to make the charge of common assault, because by so doing they will deny trial by jury. It could be argued that that subterfuge is an insult to the victim. The victim has clearly been assaultedthey have suffered actual bodily harmbut the defendant is charged with common assault, which used to be regarded as the most trifling of matters. Perhaps we need to look again at the question of which offences are summary, and which are either-way. There needs to be an adjustment back in favour of jury trial, rather than continuing on the road to excluding it.
	I shall touch briefly on the question of double jeopardy. We humble solicitors in the magistrates courts do not often deal with great cases, at least not with their final stages, although I know that some learned and hon. Members have done so. However, it is possible to see the grave difficulty that could arise from the proposal in the Bill. It has been argued that we should be allowed to reopen cases in which evidence based on later scientific advances, such as DNA testing, had not been available. We were told that protection and safeguards would be put in place, so that the information would not percolate down to the second trial jury.
	However, there are newspapers in foreign countries such as Scotland, the Republic of Ireland, France and so on. People who travel will be able to read in lurid detail about a trial, as they allegedly did about the Duke of Windsor and Mrs. Simpson. People who travelled abroad knew about that case, whereas those who stayed at home did not. Those of us who live near Stansted know that everyone now travels abroad, and that similar information would be widely spread.
	Even if people did not travel so widely, there is no doubt that titbits of judicial and legal gossip would be peddled on the internet. Few jurors would be able to approach a case fresh, saying that they knew nothing about it. They will know about any such case, as it will be notorious.
	If we adopt the proposal in the Bill, there will be no verdict of acquittal, but of Xnot proven, yet. Essentially, the ending of the double jeopardy rule would mean that all cases that did not result in a guilty verdict would be considered to be Xnot proven, yet. That would remain the decision until the state decided to open up the matter again, with the leave of the courts.
	Like other hon. Members, I shall touch on the matter of character and previous convictions. I admire the confidence of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Medway (Mr. Marshall-Andrews). It is no trouble for him to brush aside the fact that a client may have a number of convictions. I concede that there may be times when that would be the right thing to do, tactically. Generally, however, as the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) noted, most jurors are likely to say, XIf he's done it before, why not this time?
	For example, a person with previous burglary convictions might be charged with, say, drink driving. The proposal in the Bill would mean that that person's character could be attacked. What about the difficulties arising from a person's demeanour or dress? If the person charged with drink driving arrived in court with a briefcase, the prosecution could say that he should have a striped jersey and a bag bearing the word Xswag, and that he was a burglar trying to delude the court into thinking that he was a clerical worker.
	We can go down a ludicrous road and make it almost impossible for a defendant's character not to have a bearing on a case. If that happens, the balance will shift heavily towards conviction. That may be the purpose of the change. However, the balance will also shift in favour of trial by judge alone. If a person faces the risk that all of his past life could come out before a jury, he may well opt, if the case is one for which it is permitted, for trial by judge alone.
	For those reasons, I hope that it is clear that I have my doubts about some of the important parts of the Bill. The evil to be remedied may not be sufficient to justify the evils of the remedy. I am concerned about the Bill. I hope that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary and other Ministers will think hard and long about these matters as the Bill passes through the House.

Annette Brooke: Like many of those hon. Members who have spoken before, I accept the need to reform the criminal justice system, but not at the expense of increasing the risk that innocent people will be convicted.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes) has outlined the three problems that especially concern Liberal Democrat Members. The same concerns have been expressed by hon. Members of all parties, in particular about the need to retain trial by jury.
	The three main issues have been discussed pretty thoroughly and, as the hon. Member for Braintree (Mr. Hurst) said, by this time of the evening there is some repetition of the points to be covered. I shall therefore look at other issues, but I do not in any way belittle the importance of the three issues that are of such great concern.
	I welcome some of the proposals in the Bill. In particular, I welcome the recognition that the rehabilitation of offenders is a major goal of sentencing. I look forward to further developments in terms of restoration and reparation, and I welcome the comments made by the hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon).
	In a general sense, it is important to go beyond what is being said about crime and examine some of the potential outcomes. We need to get right the perspective and balance involved in being tough on crime and its causes. All hon. Members share the aim of controlling and reducing crime, but an overwhelming emphasis on being tough on crime has had unintended consequences that have exacerbated existing problems and created others. In saying that, I realise that I am rather disagreeing with the previous speaker, the hon. Member for Braintree.
	Although the Lord Chief Justice and many other key figures have publicly recognised that we should send fewer people to prison, and that short prison sentences generally serve no useful purpose, it seems that the phrase Xtough on crime has merely come to mean that more people are locked up. There are more than 72,000 people in prison in this country, and more than half of our prisons are overcrowded. Attempts by the Prison Service to make prison a constructive experience are being seriously hindered. Reoffending rates are still as high as 60 per cent.although I am sure that the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Leeds, Central (Hilary Benn), will tell me that they are fallingand the rates are even higher for juveniles and young offenders.
	On 30 September this year, there were 2,633 children locked up in 25 jails in England and Wales. Young girls are being held in adult prisons, despite a commitment to remove all those under 18 from prison by April 2000. In both instances, there are huge issues concerning the distances from home at which those young people are being held.

Andrew Selous: Would the hon. Lady care to respond to my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr. Gibb), who spoke about the situation in the US? Over the past few years, longer sentences have led directly to a decrease in crime there. What is the hon. Lady's response to that?

Annette Brooke: I have a coherent argument, from which I shall not digress. However, when we talk about shorter sentences, we are talking about sentences that are of less than 12 months. I would need much more specific information about the length of the sentences involved before I responded to the hon. Gentleman's question.
	Last week, the Howard League for Penal Reform won a judicial review against the Home Office. The High Court decided that the Children Act 1989 applied to children held in prison. Today, I saw for the first time the press statement issued by the Home Secretary, and one sentence leaped off the page at me. I was somewhat horrified. It said:
	XThe court has ruled that one sentence of our policy document needs to be corrected to reflect this.
	The matter is very important, as this was an historic judgment. To be fair to the Home Secretary, I should add that the statement goes on to say that there is deep concern and that many things need to be improved.
	We are talking about reforming the criminal justice system, but what are we doing to improve the treatment of children? The criminal justice system should treat the children who come before the courts as children whose behaviour has been unacceptable, rather than as criminals who happen to be children. The Bill is sometimes not clear about whether its provisions would apply to minors as well as adults. That problem will need much scrutiny.
	For example, mention has been made of the definition of bad character. I am not sure about whether that applies to minors. I would also like the alcohol treatment requirement to be applied to minors, but that is not entirely clear. It seems unbalanced that under-18s can be eligible for drug testing and treatment but not for alcohol treatment, but we know that alcohol is an enormous problem among young people.
	I always like to welcome the many positive initiatives in our local communities that the Government have introduced. I know that some people have concerns about proposals for parent orders and that there are questions about them, but research shows that they have produced very good results. Similarly, there are questions about referral orders, but we need to consider the research.
	Individual support orders will accompany antisocial behaviour orders. As I have said many times, I dislike the idea of having a stop measure alone, without accompanying measures. I will be interested to see what is involved in an individual support order.
	Being tough on crime has the connotation of locking more and more people up. It costs the taxpayer a great deal of money and, in certain circumstances, it reinforces criminal behaviour. At least one newspaper report has suggested that the changes proposed in the Bill could result in having more than 100,000 prisoners before the end of the decade. That would cost an extra 2 billion a year on top of the 3 billion a year that the Prison Service already costs us.

Andrew Turner: Will the hon. Lady give way?

Annette Brooke: I should like to make progress.
	Some proposals in the Bill could have advantages, such as that to introduce a new indeterminate sentence for serious violent offenders. In very exceptional circumstances, and with certain caveats, that could have advantages, for example, it would enable an offender's progress to be regularly reviewed during a prison sentence so that he could be released if and when it was safe so to do. However, it is important that there is ultimately a court decision on that offender.
	In principle, I welcome the new custody plus sentence, which will ensure that short-term prisoners are subject to supervision on release. At present, short-term prisoners receive little in the way of rehabilitation while in prison and are not under supervision when they leave. Not surprisingly, they have a high rate of reconviction and are responsible for much of the high-volume crime that is so troublesome and distressing. However, if custody plus sentencing is to be successful, it must be backed by resources to fund probation service supervision and efforts by voluntary agencies to help with accommodation, employment and mentoring. That is crucial to prevent reoffending.
	I recently raised with the Department the issue of adequate funding in relation to early release with tagging. I was given the impression that the money was being spent. However, a number of agencies and organisations share my concern about resources. Indeed, it will take time to recruit and train sufficient probation officers even with adequate resourcing. The Howard League for Penal Reform suggests that the proposal should be deferred until it can be delivered properly. That would be a shame because it is a good proposal, but it shows the strength of concern about the need for probation officers to be in place to make tagging work properly.
	There is a risk with the custody plus sentence in so far as the courts may find it an attractive proposition for offenders who currently receive community sentences. It is crucial that the sentencing framework strongly dissuades courts from passing short-term prison sentences as opposed to a straightforward community sentence. There are opportunities to develop excellent practices across the country with community sentencing. We need to avoid a situation in which more people end up in prison because they have defaulted on a community sentence. To my mind, having a tough community sentence means having a good one that workspeople stay on it and it leads to a reformation of behaviour.
	I have some doubts about the proposed intermittent custody sentences. There is an attraction in the argument that offenders will be able to maintain jobs, family ties and education. The burden on society is less and there are positive contributions. However, an offender considered for such a punishment will not be perceived as a threat to society. I wonder whether it is right to put such people into our already overcrowded prisons, creating extra administrative burdens and burdens relating to travel. Will it be a workable proposal?
	The proposal to empower magistrates courts to pass prison sentences of up to 12 months could also prove to be a mixed blessing. It will reduce waiting times on remand if offenders who would otherwise have been committed to the Crown court are dealt with by magistrates instead, but there is the possibility that magistrates may pass prison sentences of nine or 12 months where the Crown courts might have imposed a community sentence or a shorter prison sentence. We must be very sure about our guidelines.
	I believe that it is important to have consistent leaderships at all levels to support a reduced use of custody in appropriate circumstances to make sentencing truly make sense. I am excluding serious and dangerous offenders from my comments, because I agree with other hon. Members that imprisonment should be a penalty of last resort when no other sentence is adequate for the protection of the public and the severity of the crime. It is so important to develop well-supported, worthwhile community sentences with the objective of being smart on crime. Above all, we need to be effective on the causes of crime by tackling them with better educational, housing and employment opportunities and well-structured youth programmes. These issues must not be forgotten when changes are made to the criminal justice system. The early intervention through sure start is a major breakthrough and we are beginning to see excellent work with crime and disorder partnerships and the youth offending teams. However, there is so much more to be done, and we must not forget that while we are debating the details of the Bill.

Marsha Singh: I would like to turn the focus of the debate on to the victims and communities suffering from crime, as that does not seem to have been addressed so far. Those communities and people, in working-class and deprived areas, face crime on a daily basis. They face crime committed against their families, themselves and the wider community. They will understand and support the measures in the Bill. Those are the people for whom I wish to speak today.
	Those people understand implicitly the comments of the Home Secretary when he said recently that when the criminal justice system works badly, everyone suffers. He said that at the moment, too many offenders escape justice and cases drop out at every stage of the process, often because of court practices that need modernising or because of tactical manoeuvres designed to disrupt the justice process and secure acquittal of the guilty. The fundamental principle remains that the prosecution must prove its case, but that does not mean that the system should enable a defendant to obstruct justice by inaction or by abuse of the system.
	The people with whom I am concerned understand that only a fifth of the cases taken up by the police result in conviction. They know that the criminal justice system is letting them down. It is to them that we owe a duty to improve the system and to improve the quality of their life and security, which is impaired by crime every day.
	I support the measures in the Bill with very few reservations. I will comment briefly on only a few because of the time constraints.
	Clause 3 allows for street bail, which should give police officers greater flexibility in dealing with offenders. A Library research paper noted that if only 10 per cent. of arrests were dealt with in that way, 390,000 patrol officer hours could be savedequivalent to 200 police officer posts. That potential alone should recommend the clause.
	Clause 5 will extend the detention time limit for any arrestable offence to a maximum of 36 hours. That period applies only to serious offences at present. Although I am not fully convinced of the need for the proposal, I am prepared to accept the contention of the Association of Chief Police Officers that the initial detention period may provide insufficient time for the investigation due to delays elsewhere in the custody process; for example, when intoxication renders a suspect unfit for interview, the provision will be helpful.
	Clause 23 deals with conditions on bail before a charge is made. I concur fully with the conclusion of the Select Committee on Home Affairs, which states:
	XWe accept that a power to impose conditions on bail before charge is a necessary and logical part of the move towards charging by the Crown Prosecution Service.
	Clause 84 is one of the most controversial elements of the Bill. It will allow evidence of a defendant's bad character to be admissible automatically in a range of specified circumstances. I take a simple view of that matteras will my constituents. Most of them cannot understand why a person's record is not revealed automatically, and I agree with them.
	Many of my constituents have heard criminals outside the court boast about their criminal record. What is good enough outside court should be good enough in court. No one has thrust a criminal record at such people. They gain their CV of their own accord by breaking the law, so my constituents and I believe that their full CV should be available to the law when they appear in court.
	Although I should like to refer to many other clauses, I shall speak briefly on double jeopardy and then on trial by jury. It would be completely intolerable if the murderer of a child was acquitted and subsequently DNA evidence became available. My community could not support that and nor could I. I do not understand the principle involved. If somebody commits a heinous crime and evidenceespecially DNA evidencecrops up later, why should that person get away with their crime? Why should not the state have a second bite at that cherry?
	If such people are acquitted, it is because they have lied to the court. Why should people be allowed to benefit from lying to the court? My constituents cannot understand that and nor can I. If people have lied to the court and new and compelling evidence has been uncovered, we should have a second chance to hear the case.No one should benefit from lies. No one should escape the consequences of their crime.
	The proposals on trial by jury are not a complete assault on the jury system. The provision is small but positive and deals with lengthy and complex issues. They may involve intimidation of jurors, terrorism cases, gangsterism or organised crime. If juries are intimidated, it is right and proper that cases should not fall by the wayside or be affected by such actions.
	Finally, I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary on the reasoned and reasonable way in which he introduced the Bill to the House. I wish him and his team every success in steering the Bill to a successful conclusion.

Andrew Turner: May I point out to the hon. Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Singh) that middle-class communities are just as entitled to the protection of the law and that they feel the impact of crime as severely as other groups? Of course, I recognise that crime makes the greatest impact on working-class and deprived communities and we should bear that in mind at all times.
	The Bill is good in parts, but it has no fundamental underlying principle, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr. Gibb) pointed out. I welcome some of its provisions, which give me hope, but I regret others. I also regret that there have been some omissions.
	I welcome the proposal that the disclosure of previous convictions should become easier. I do not share the view that a jury cannot be trusted with that information. As I said during the debate on the Gracious Speech, for many years an underlying failure of those of us who rule or who are elected to this place has been that we do not trust the public with information to which they are entitled and that we would expect to receive.
	I also welcome the changes in eligibility for the avoidance of jury service. We can hardly criticise juries for being incapable of taking on board the information that they are given, whether it relates to previous convictions or to difficult fraud cases, if those who are more capable, at least by education or profession, find it easy to escape their civic responsibilities for jury service.
	I welcome those two provisions, but I have a greater number of regrets. I regret the proposed reduction in eligibility for jury trial. The Government have not yet made their case. As hon. Members on both sides of the House have observed, the Government began by attacking jury trial from one direction and are now attacking it from another.
	Although I accept that some cases are especially difficult or time consuming, it cannot be impossible to empanel a jury that is capable of devoting enough time and energy to its civic responsibility. I respect the hon. Member for Stafford (Mr. Kidney) and I listened carefully to his arguments, but I am still unable to understand why he supports the change.
	There are several omissions on which I invite the Minister to comment. One of the omissions is very narrow, but I feel it particularly in my constituency, which, as the Minister will know, has three prisons, one of which has an enviable record in the treatment of sex offenders. However, it also imprisons people from the Channel Islands, which have a different judicial process.
	The Channel Islands do not have the same safeguards on release as those for people imprisoned in this jurisdiction. The arrangements for the supervision of prisoners released from Albany who have served sentences imposed by Channel Islands' courts are different. That is a matter of concern to some of my constituents. They fear that those prisoners, when released, can remain in my constituency or in other parts of the United Kingdom without supervision. That supervision would be definitely imposed on those who have been convicted in this jurisdiction.
	The second issue on which I hope some changes will be made as the Bill progresses through the House and the other place is that of pleas in mitigation. Those in the legal profession, whom the Home Secretary likes to malign from time to time, deserve every bit of the Home Secretary's opinion of them where they exercise the greatest inventiveness with the least possible evidence to demonstrate to judges and magistrates why a convicted defendant should not serve an appropriate sentence.
	I am sure that judges and perhaps many magistrates will say that they can see through the arguments put by the defending solicitor when he comes up with a host of stories about how the criminal has perhaps suffered a deprived childhood or has just made up with his girlfriendand they door perhaps has found a job and that any kind of custodial sentence would mean that the job would be lost. However, a great weakness in the whole system is that the truth or accuracy of those assertions is not tested in court. All that the solicitor has to say is, XI am instructed that these are the circumstances in which my client finds himself. The judge or magistrate must judge entirely for himself, without any evidence, whether those claims are accurate.
	A third omission, on which I should like further work to be done, is that of unduly lenient sentences. Many hon. Members will perhaps be surprised to hear that they, the prosecution and the victims of crime have only 28 days to refer a case of an allegedly unduly lenient sentence to the Attorney-General for action. I argue not that 28 days is too short a period, but that more information should be made available, particularly to the victims of crime, as to their powers to take back such matters to the Crown Prosecution Service or the Attorney-General.
	The failure of judges to impose what are seen as reasonable sentences is perhaps one of the greatest irritants to the public. They see that the police have taken the trouble to secure the evidence, the CPS has taken the trouble to prosecute and the courts have provided a conviction, yet the judge is convinced for some reason or other that a short rather than a lengthy sentence is appropriate.
	I have dealt with such a case in my constituency this week. It involves someone who died after being intentionally kicked by a drunken man who had made threats of killing and had intimidated other witnesses. He received a two-year sentence. I am pleased to say that I have had the opportunity to refer the case to the Attorney-General.
	The Bill fails to deal with a huge setback to the effective treatment of life prisoners: the recent judgment about the Home Secretary's powers to set a tariff. Perhaps Ministers intend to deal with that by some means or other in the Bill, but I believe that we should reverse the judgment. There is no means to deal with the issue effectively other than to give back to the Home Secretary the powers that he had before that judgment. I do not wish to be told that that is an unexpected or unwarranted effect of the Human Rights Act 1998. The Government are responsible for that Act and, if necessary, they must admit that it was wrong.
	I also hope that the Government, having dealt with many minor changes, will now develop some serious measures to tackle crime and to defend the innocent. Those measures must deal effectively with the causes of crime, one of the most significant of which is the drugs culture. Another of those causes is poor and inadequate parenting, a third is human greed and folly, and a fourth is the simple failure of many people to control primitive urges. Underlying the latter two is something that, all too frequently, we fail to spell out to our constituents and to othersthat there is a link between cause and effect.
	At the risk of resorting to anecdote, I shall tell the story of someone in my constituency who has now been evicted from her council house by the Medina housing association. I congratulate the association on that eviction because her children persistently offended neighbours. Her argument was that they were only children, and that it was not her responsibility. It is, of course, her responsibility, and the Minister agrees that it is. Far too many people are beginning to feel that not only are they not responsible for the acts of their children and grandchildren, they are no longer responsible for their own acts. Only when we address that and re-establish the link between cause and effect will we truly succeed in conquering the causes of crime.

Paul Stinchcombe: I am grateful for the opportunity to make a brief contribution to this important debate on an important Bill. I shall concentrate on parts 10 and 11 of the Bill, which, as we know, contain some of the most controversial measures. They would abolish two long-standing principles of common law by which the rights of the accused have hitherto been protected: the double jeopardy rule and the rules governing the admissibility of evidence of bad character in criminal proceedings.
	At the outset, I want to set out the analytical framework that guides me as I approach those two proposals. It is made up of just three basic principles, but I believe it to be robust. First, the purpose of the criminal justice system is twofold: not just to protect the innocent from the guilty but to protect the innocent from conviction. Secondly, the criminal justice system must therefore permit evidence to be adduced by the prosecutor if, but only if, the prejudice done to the defendant is justified by the probative value of that evidence. Thirdly, we should prevent evidence of that probative value from being admitted to the court only if that is justified by some other public interest of compelling importance. With those three basic principles in mind, let me look first at the rule on double jeopardy and then at the rules on the admissibility of evidence of bad character, and thereby come to a conclusion on the Government's current proposals.
	As the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr. Lilley) said, the rule on double jeopardy is ancient, dating back some 800 years in our common law tradition. I agree, therefore, that it is hardly a rule that we should discard lightly and without deep reflection guided by the principles that I have described. I must say, however, that a lot happens over eight centuries. Eight hundred years ago, we did not have the advantage of contemporary forensic science. No second trial all those years ago could have brought forth previously missed evidence, capable of proving the identity of someone from a spot of blood too small for the human eye to see. All of that has changed. Forensic scientists are now capable of assisting the judicial process in ways that would have been wholly unimaginable to our forefathers. First came fingerprinting, and then genetic fingerprintingDNA testing. I must tell the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden that progress will continue. It does not stop now. There will be corneal mapping and facial mapping. All sorts of different scientific advantages and advances will be available to future generations.
	Those technical advances can bring forward compelling evidence of probative value that could not have been adduced when the double jeopardy rule was first established. When such evidence can prove conclusively the innocence of someone accused of crime, it is admissible because of that probative value, and because the innocent should not be convicted. Likewise, when such evidence can prove conclusively the innocence of someone previously found guilty of a crime, it is admissible, so that an appeal against conviction can succeed. Indeed, when such evidence can prove conclusively the guilt of someone for the first time accused of an offence, it is again admissible, and quite properly so. Its probative value demonstrably justifies the prejudice that would be occasioned to the defendant.
	We must therefore ask ourselves a fairly basic question. What on earth is the compelling public interest reason that demands that when exactly the same evidence of identical probative value can help prove the guilt of someone previously found innocent of a serious crime, our criminal system must by operation of law ignore it? The reason cannot be for fear that a second trial can never be fair, because we already allow second trials and we know that they can be fair. It should never be for fear of sloppy police investigations. That would be a truly appalling basis upon which to frame the legislation of this country.
	Surely to goodness, the reason cannot be for fear of oppression by an over-zealous prosecutor. That made sense 800 years ago when the rule was first established, in an age of trial by torture and mediaeval monarchs. Then, the rule had genuine civilising purposes. It was to protect the citizen from the oppression of the state and to prevent the mediaeval monarch from dragging his opponents repeatedly to the court, subjecting those citizens to the stress, ordeal and expense of repeat trials. Then we did not have the Human Rights Act 1998 and the police and criminal evidence procedures that we have now to protect against the abuses of processes. Now we have protections against such oppression.
	Quite simply, the march of time has done away with the justification for double jeopardywhen judged against the guiding principlesthrough advances in science, human rights law and criminal procedures. If the criminal justice system fails to catch up with those changes, and if, for no good reason, it fails to allow such evidence to be adduced, it will fail to achieve one of its two principal purposes. It will fail to protect the innocent from the guilty. That will bring the criminal justice system into disrepute.

Dominic Grieve: rose

Paul Stinchcombe: Will the hon. Gentleman allow me to finish my remarks? I know that hon. Friends wish to speak.
	If the criminal justice system fails to catch up, the parents of raped and murdered sons and daughters will be told by scientists that the villainsthe people who committed the crimeare known and have been identified, but are walking free.
	I want to apply the same consistent principles to the Government's second proposalto abolish the rules that prevent evidence of previous bad character from being admitted save in exceptional circumstances. Does that proposal meet the tests of principle that I have set out? I have to say to my hon. Friend the Minister that the answer is a little less clear.
	Those common law rules have been developed by judges over the centuries precisely to apply the three principles by which we should be guided. The very reason for the common law prohibition on the general admissibility of evidence of past convictions is that such evidence can be massively prejudicial to the accused, while having absolutely no probative value at all in respect of the offence with which the accused is currently charged. In lay terms, proving someone was a naughty boy before does not remotely mean that he has been a naughty boy again.
	The common law therefore requires more than the existence of a past conviction before it can be admitted in evidence. It generally requires more even than conviction for the same offence. Indeed, admitting evidence of that past conviction would be even more obviously prejudicial to the accused, without necessarily raising the probative value of the fact of that past conviction one little bit. What the common law requires before a past conviction can be admitted in evidence is something beyond the fact of that conviction. It requires something additional and something sufficient to raise the probative value of that conviction, so that it justifies the prejudice that would be caused to the accused.
	It could be that the past conviction was for an offence that was Xstrikingly similar. That would admit it in evidence. The common law recognises the additional probative value of that fact. It could be something different, as the leading House of Lords case makes clear. However, there should be something to increase probative value before the conviction can be admitted in evidence. I speak as a lawyer, and that seems to be good law. It is in accordance with the principles that I have set out. However, the Bill would do away with that common law and replace it with a new extended statutory code, whereby numerous preconditions for the admissibility of the fact of the conviction are set, including, for example, whether the conviction was for an offence of the same description as the one with which the defendant is now charged. That inevitably means that all such convictions might routinely be admitted in evidence without anything to raise their evidential value. That is precisely what the common law has been developed to prevent, because it would be unfair to the accused.
	That in turn raises a question of fundamental principle, which I hope my hon. Friend will address. Do the Government want the courts to admit evidence of past convictions even if the probative value of the convictions does not justify the prejudice to the accused? I do not believe that that is the Government's intention, but if it is, I simply disagree with them. If it is not their intention, however, I cannot understand the benefit of this part of the Bill.
	Indeed, there are risks in introducing the extended statutory code in place of common law. One of the benefits of common law over statutory codes is that it is flexible. It is capable of developing to meet new circumstances when the words of legislation are fixed. If we continue to take this route in what is otherwise a good Bill, we could end up removing flexible rulesdesigned by judges over countless years to meet the three principles by which we should be guided, and are guided in other parts of the Billand replacing them with a rigid code, possibly incomplete, whereby evidence might be adduced even though its prejudice to the accused outweighs its true probative value. With the greatest respect, I suggest that if we did that, we would not much improve the existing criminal justice system.

Andrew Selous: It is a great privilege to take part in the debate. Unlike many hon. Members present, I am not a lawyer. I am not necessarily proud of that, unlike my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow). I recognise that lawyers are valuable members of society. They dispense justice and ensure that victims are afforded protection. Nevertheless, I am a lay person and speak with perhaps a little trepidation.
	I have twice served on a jury in the Old Bailey. In the past few months alone, I have twice been a victim of crime when I suffered from theft and criminal damage. MPs do not live in another world from their constituents; we live in it alongside them and experience what they experience.
	I am convinced that in emphasising law and order in this legislative Session, the Government are addressing the public's No. 1 concern. From talking to my constituents and seeing them in my advice surgery week by week, and from the information that I have gathered from the survey and polls that I have conducted extensively in my constituency, I know that their No. 1 concern is crime, antisocial behaviour and the fear of crime. Notwithstanding the many problems that we have to tackle in our public services and elsewhere, my constituents say to me time and time again that crime and antisocial behaviour is their No. 1 concern. So I understand why the Government have emphasised doing something about it.
	I was struck by the remarks of my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin). He said that in tackling the problem the emphasis should be on apprehension. He said that 80 per cent. or so of crimes are undetected and do not get anywhere near the criminal justice system. We should remind ourselves that that is not the tip of the icebergthat would be putting it too stronglybut a vast mass of crime, disorder and antisocial behaviour is committed from which our constituents suffer daily. Sadly, such behaviour never gets near the criminal justice system because, perhaps, the police are not there to prevent it, there is no evidence or our constituents are too scared to give evidence to enable due process. To coin a phrase, we should be concerned about apprehension, apprehension, apprehension. That will have the greatest effect for constituents.
	On prisons, my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr. Gibb) cited interesting evidence on the experience in the United States of America, to which I referred in an intervention, where there is a direct connection between increasing prison sentences and the reduction of crime. We should look at that evidence carefully and try to establish whether there is indeed a causal link between the two factors.
	My hon. Friend was also right to point out that although the average sentence passed by British courts is 14 years, on average only 22 months are served. That is a cause of great concern to our constituents. Time and again, we hear people say that a criminal was sentenced to so many years in prison but is out after a much shorter period, often only a matter of months.
	As my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) pointed out in an intervention, the decline in crime in this country in the mid-1990s was directly related to the increase in the number of prison sentences and the length of those sentences. That also has lessons for us as we face these serious problems.
	I am delighted to see the emphasis in the Bill on rehabilitation in prison. Obviously, it is extremely sad and regrettable that people commit crime, and we all regret the distress caused to our constituents as a result. However, once the offender has been identified, the question is how we can reform his character to make sure that he does not go on committing crimes.
	The other day I heard evidence about prisons in Merseyside. One, which is run by Group 4, has one of the highest rates of rehabilitation work among prisoners, providing effective education in a structured programme throughout the day. That was compared with similar prisons in the area, where prisoners do not have the same opportunities for study and work and for improvement, largely because their schedules are arranged pretty much for the convenience of the prison warders. I ask the Minister to look into the practice in different prisons and different management regimes to see whether we can learn from best practice and export it to prisons throughout the UK. All prisoners should have the best possible chance of improving themselves so that they do not commit crime when they come out.
	It is excellent that the Bill contains measures to focus on drug rehabilitation in our prisons. I cannot believe that I am the only Member of the House who is astounded by the amount of drugs available to prisoners. That is something that I cannot understand and I do not accept, and I do not believe that our constituents accept it. We know that drugs are rife in society and that they are responsible for some 80 per cent. of the crime committed on our streets. However, it is wholly unacceptable that convicted criminals can continue their drug habit when they go to prisonoften, we are led to believe, with the connivance of the prison officers, because being able to control the prisoners makes their own lives easier. I urge the Minister to do whatever is in his power and that of the Home Office to make sure that drugs are not freely circulating in our prisons. We certainly need to concentrate on that problem.
	I was struck by the remarks of the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes), who went through the characteristics that prisoners tend to have. We know that they tend to come from low-income backgrounds and areas of high unemployment and that they are likely to have experienced bad housing. Those are all issues that we need to address, and the Government are trying to do that. That is probably the part of their programme that relates to their slogan about being tough on the causes of crime, and that is right.
	However, I hoped the Liberal Democrat spokesman would include in that category family background and parenting, which were rightly touched on my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Turner). I was talking to a sergeant in Dunstable police station the other day about that subject, and he suddenly looked at me and said, XNow I think of it, not one of the 12 top criminals in the Dunstable area has a conventional family background. We can argue about cause and effect, and I agree with many Government Members that poverty, bad housing and unemployment lead to family breakdownthere is a vicious circlealthough that is not the case for many families. However, we must get realthe Government must address seriously the things that it can tackle. Initiatives like sure start are excellent, but much more needs to be done. We need a national debate focusing on responsibility in our schools, and on the relationship between parents and children in families. Again, my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight discussed that.
	My own constituency does not qualify for sure start despite the fact that it has significant pockets of deprivation. However, I commend Homestart, an excellent charity in Leighton Buzzard, as well as the community link project of the Baptist church in Houghton Regis, which I visited last Friday, on its excellent and worthwhile work with parents and young children.
	I very much identify with the comments of my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset about the need for juries to be local and accessible. He painted a picture of justice gradually retreating from some of our smaller towns and being focused in larger centres, where it was dispensed more professionally by district judges and so on. That has a strong resonance in my own constituencyLeighton Buzzard has lost its magistrates court, and witnesses and victims must make a long and difficult journey by public transport to court in Luton. How many witnesses will not come forward if they cannot get to court because travel is too difficult, or because they have to take too long off work to give evidence? Justice must be local to be effective. I urge the Government to look at the closure of magistrates courts throughout the country. If they restore them to local communities, that will help them to achieve their objectives.
	As for double jeopardy, where there is clear new evidence, the Government's proposals make senseI agree with the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Stinchcombe) on that. However, the presumption of innocence is an important fundamental tenet of English law. Getting rid of the double jeopardy principle may contravene the European Union's charter of fundamental rights, a matter that has been raised previously by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wells (Mr. Heathcoat-Amory), and we need to look at that.

Stephen Hesford: I am grateful for the opportunity to take part in this interesting and important debate. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Stinchcombe), I was going to concentrate on two key areas of the Bill that may delay us in the Committeeif I have the honour of serving on it. I shall deal in passing with one of the most contentious aspects of the Billjury trial. The Opposition spokesman seemed to be in great difficulty when he dealt with that issue, which leads to me to wonder what is behind the questioning of the Government's reasons for changing jury trial, as set out by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. The right hon. Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin) appeared to posit an equivalence between the lay magistracy and jury trial, but anyone who has practised in the courts will know that the opposite is true. Defendants elect for jury trial because they want to get away from lay magistrates. It is nonsensical to say that we are denying people's right to appear before their peers within the magistrates system and the jury system. I wonder why the right hon. Gentleman is seeking to make that link; it is not a real link.
	The right hon. Gentleman talked about professionalisation of the magistracythe deputy judges. When I practised in the lower courts many years ago, the defendants whom I came across were happy to appear before stipendiary magistrates. They were dealt with better and faster. Stipendiary magistrates understood cases, and defendants trusted them more than they trusted lay magistrates. Again, I question the right hon. Gentleman's logic.
	It has been said that there is no theme in the Bill and that it is a sort of Churchillian pudding. I strongly disagree with that. There is a simple theme, which is about addressing the rights and responsibilities of the criminal justice system so that it focuses more on the rights of the victim. Talking about the number of Criminal Justice Bills is a cheap debating point. There may be one or two more than we would like, but we cannot abdicate our responsibility to get the system right. That is what the Bill is designed to do, and I welcome it. Broadly, that is what most Members are saying.
	It has been said that the measure is a populist Bill designed to make a headline. I do not understand that. When my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary introduced the Bill this afternoon he dealt with some of the issues in an attractive and helpful way. On sensitive issuesthose of crime and disorderthe Government are encouraging debate about the fundamentals of our criminal justice system. It is wrong-headed to argue that the Government are seeking to be populist while encouraging a debate on what might be seen as a difficult issue for them; no doubt the Opposition would say that in terms of delivery, it certainly is difficult.
	My right hon. Friend mentioned enforcement, and talked about seeking the truth during the trial process. I welcome that suggestion. I reject the suggestion of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Medway (Mr. Marshall-Andrews), who said that the trial process is not about seeking the truth. It should be. Some of the measures set out in the Bill are about redressing the balance of the process so as to do just that. The process is not a philosophical game or a tug of war, to determine who is best on the day. It must be more sophisticated than that. Some of the measures proposed in the Bill address that problem.

Dominic Grieve: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Stephen Hesford: No; I am sorry, but I will give way on another occasion.
	My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary mentioned enforcement. I have in mind two of my constituents. Mr. Yeardsley lives on a working-class housing estate at Woodchurch. He was assaulted more than two years ago and was awarded compensation by the courts. The defendant still has not paid the compensation to that elderly gentleman, who comes to see me regularly with a look that is heart-rending. To use an American term, he says that he cannot have closure. He says, XAll I can think about is this toeragthat is the word that he usesXwho assaulted me. He is still out there and he has still not paid his dues.
	The second constituent is a serving police officer who was assaulted in the course of his duty. He was awarded compensation, and is still waiting for it. He got in touch with me and asked, XHow can I trust the system? The Bill reconnects the system to those whom it is supposed to serve.
	The Bill is courageous. The hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon), who is not in her place, mentioned an article in The Times yesterday. It was a good, short write-up of the some of the points that we are debating. The Times also contained an interview with Lord Falconer, who spoke plainly about the reasons for the Bill, and for entertaining such difficult issues. He said:
	XThe criminal justice system is not effective and needs reform. About 20 per cent. of recorded crimes are brought to justice, 25 per cent. of offenders commit offences while on bail, 48 per cent. of prosecution files are not properly prepared, 30,000 trials a year are abandoned because witnesses do not turn up, and more than 50 per cent. of defendants who are sentenced to custody or community penalties reoffend within two years.
	That is a sorry catalogue.
	Many parts of the Bill are welcome: street bail, live links in criminal proceedings, the prosecution appeal against early termination, disclosure, drug rehabilitation requirements, widening jury service to pull in the middle classes, and conditional cautions. I suggest to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary that we should make breaching the conditional caution an offence, so that the system does not go straight from breach of caution to dealing with the original offence. There could be a halfway measure, which would be only a summary offence and might help to maintain the integrity of the caution process without burdening the system downstream.
	It has been said that lawyers do not like double jeopardy, but I am sure that most hon. Members received the same Law Society briefing as me, and the Law Society now supports the change. Justice, which is not a right-wing organisation, also supports the provision. It says:
	Xthis is particularly necessary to deal with the effectively short-term problem of the development of DNA and other scientific testing.
	Other hon. Members made that point.
	I support the Bill's provision on bad character. The Law Commission also broadly supports it in its report, XEvidence of Bad Character in Criminal Proceedings, published in October, which said:
	XThe Commission believes that all the rules on admissibility of bad character should be contained in one regulation
	and:
	Xthere is currently too much confusion in the current law.
	The provision would help to codify a complicated area of law, as has already been suggested.
	The Times yesterday also included an interview with Dame Heather Hallett, a High Court judge.

Ross Cranston: It was very interesting.

Stephen Hesford: That is true. She said that she had been trying a murder case involving a multiple stabbing81 stab woundsand a severe head injury. The defendant was convicted, but the jury did not know that the man was a knife user and a beater of persons. The judge postulated that it might have helped if the jury had known that. That is sort of case that we have in mind, and I commend the Government on the measure.
	If the Bill becomes law in roughly its current state, it will reconnect the police, the Crown Prosecution Service, witnesses and the public.

DEFERRED DIVISIONS

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I now have to announce the result of Divisions deferred from a previous day.
	On the motion on the Convention on the Future of Europe, the Ayes were 282, the Noes were 12, so the motion was agreed to.
	On the motion on Estimates 200102, the Ayes were 412, the Noes were 39, so the motion was agreed to.
	[The Division Lists are published at the end of today's debates.]
	I must also inform the House that a Bill will be brought in upon the resolution in the name of the Financial Secretary relating to Estimates 200102. I understand that a Minister will present the Bill at the conclusion of proceedings on the Criminal Justice Bill.

Criminal Justice Bill

Question again proposed, That the Bill be read a Second time.

Andrew Miller: I speak as a minority participant in tonight's debate, in that I am a non-lawyer. Following the speech of the hon. Member for South-West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous), I must tell him that I agreed with about 85 per cent. of what he said, and with every word that he said during his first three minutes. That will therefore cut down the length of my contribution, which should assist my colleagues.
	The Home Secretary said that the Bill formed part of an end-to-end reform of the criminal justice system. Hon. Members on both sides of the House have had the good grace to mention projects such as sure start. Important projects such as that and the Children's Fund are all critical to this end-to-end reform. I am sure that I am not the only one who gets letters week after week from constituents facing antisocial behaviour in their communities. Tonight I want to talk specifically from the point of view of the victims. That is the right end of the telescope through which to look, in the context not only of the Bill but of the whole of the Government's programme.
	Yobbish behaviour is undertaken by a very small group of people; it is not the norm. Most young people do a tremendous amount of good in our communities, but that small group must be dealt with more severely within the framework of the criminal justice system. The hon. Members for Isle of Wight (Mr. Turner) and for South-West Bedfordshire both talked about the role of parents, and in that respect I agree with them. From the small beginnings of antisocial behaviour, all the way through to major criminality, we need to consider the point of view of the victims first. That means that we need to give the police the powers to deal with issues at the investigative stage, and the courts the powers to play their part.
	I mentioned a particular case in an earlier intervention. An 83-year-old lady in my constituency, who is registered disabled, has over the past couple of years had her house and outbuildings pelted with air gun pellets, had windows broken and so on. When she bravely confronted the perpetrators, all that she received was verbal abuse. She now lives in fear in her property and, despite having lived there for 25 years, is now considering moving home. The police have been called on a number of occasions, but under current legislation they seem powerless to put an end to the activities of those young terroristsbecause that is what they arewho are making her life a misery. We need a framework of law to address such cases. The new sentencing policy will, to use its catchphrase, put Xsense into the sentencing. Ensuring that the punishment fits the crime and the criminal is important at this stage, in relation to the kind of behaviour that we all see in our constituencies. New provisions affecting juveniles in this Bill and others are equally important.
	Another case involves a local man who was the victim of a violent assault. This case particularly illustrates the need for an end-to-end revision of the system. The sole witness to the crime was terrorised into withdrawing his statement, and as a result there has been no prosecution. My constituent, who has suffered not only physical hurt but real trauma, has now had salt rubbed into his wounds by the attitude of the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority, which treats him as nothing but a nuisance. Its attitude is simply, XYou cannot be traumatised unless you have had time off work. This man is a professional who has stuck at his workhe is a schoolteacher. He has gone through a great deal of personal distress, but he is being told that he cannot be compensated for his trauma because he did not take time off. Is that the message that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary wants to send out? I am sure that it is not. We need end-to-end reform.
	The Government must take a tougher line on criminality, and the Bill will help to achieve that. Referring back to that particular case, knowledge of previous convictions will convince people and perhaps make it easier for the police and the Crown Prosecution Service to satisfy the court of the validity of the evidence that they can bring before it. If it would not jeopardise any future prosecution, I would name the perpetrators of that crime. We all live in relatively small communities, and because of anecdotal evidence built up from casework, we often know who the perpetrators are. We need a measure to help the process.
	I particularly welcome the Bill's proposals on reforming the double jeopardy law. As my hon. Friend the Minister will know, apparently, once a person has been tried and acquitted of a serious offence, there can be no retrial unless compelling new evidence comes to light. That is wrong, for reasons that have been clearly enunciated tonight. The consideration of the matter by some of our Oscar-winning colleagues in the legal profession is entirely false, and we must consider it from the victims' point of view.
	I admired the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Stinchcombe), who referred to DNA and other evidence and hit the nail on the head. As time goes on, we shall see developments not just in DNA technology, but across the panoply of the forensic armoury, and we cannot predict where those will end. We must create a framework within which scientific advances enable us to adduce evidence from things that would previously have been discarded, and we must be able to retrieve those things and put them back in use if they might fundamentally alter the outcome of any logical analysis of the evidence that has been gathered.
	That will be difficult to achieve. One could argue on the one hand that the system ought to be based only on information gathered at the time or, on the other, that the great problem is deducing what evidence will be of use in the future, when different analytical techniques begin to emerge. We need a framework that enables us to move forward as the science develops.
	In my capacity as patron of the charity RoadPeace, and chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on justice for road traffic victims, I am delighted to see steady progress being made in relation to crimes on the roadin particular, in relation to focusing on the victims' point of view. Time and again in cases that I have dealt with in that capacity, we discover that issues of intentfor instance, in the case of a drunk who did not intend to go out and killresult in rather bizarre sentences. In a range of areas, logic would produce a solution different from that offered by our current system.
	My plea to the House, and to my hon. Friend the Minister, is that we should review our criminal justice system root and branch and ensure that it is a victims' justice system. The reform is long overdue; the system is much in need of change to ensure that it has the public's confidence and provides the justice that victims deserve. The reforms proposed today will create a justice system that supports and informs victims, respects and protects witnesses and delivers justice on behalf of victims, defendants and the community. That is what the House should be achieving.

Claire Curtis-Thomas: Like many who have spoken today, I have no legal qualifications. I speak as chair of the all-party group for abuse investigations, which has been examining procedures employed by the police and other parts of the criminal justice system when investigating historic complex sexual abuse cases. The Home Affairs Select Committee recentlythis yearinquired into the conduct of such investigations, and produced its report a few weeks ago. Its recommendations support the concerns of the all-party group, and I hope that the Bill will be developed to enable it to respond positively to those 23 recommendations.
	My comments will be made in the context of my knowledge of the way in which sexual abuse inquiries are conducted in the United Kingdom. I am deeply concerned about the fact that the current criminal justice process has led to the conviction of innocent men, many of whom will die in jail. Thousands of men have been identified as sex offenders in the UK in the last four years. Many are arrested and many are charged. Many cases are dropped. A few men are acquitted, and many are convicted.
	The evidence advanced in such cases consists of the verbal recollection by an individual of events that may have taken place up to 50 years earlier. The accusers are normally convicted criminals who are in prison, on remand or on parole. Witnesses who may be prisoners are interviewed, in prison or at home, many times while the police try to obtain a statement that will pass muster as far as the CPS is concerned. I have evidence of men being interviewed 13 times in 10 different prisons.
	Witnesses in such cases may be Xworked by the police for up to five years. Meanwhile, the accused is damned to a never-ending torture, waiting to be called to courtor, in some cases, the investigation is dropped the day before the case is due to go to court. Many witnesses subsequently claim huge amounts in compensation, typically 40,000, and there is a consensus that the availability for compensation corrupts the integrity of the process and the police inquiries.
	While I welcome the changes in the regulations relating to the management of suspects, I am deeply concerned about the absence of a comparable system for the management of witnesses, particularly vulnerable witnesses such as prisoners who have a unique relationship with the police. They may well comply with the desires of the police, but to gain personal advantage rather than to ensure a just outcome. The case of the Birmingham six led to the establishment of protocols for the management of physical evidence. I want comparable arrangements for oral evidence, when merely the recollections of individuals can cause men with unblemished characters to be sent to jail for up to 18 years.
	I am acutely aware that the definition of disclosure varies from judge to judge. Any attempt to reduce that variation would be welcomed by all prosecuting and defence solicitors involved in such cases. Many solicitors believe that innocent men have frequently been found guilty because evidence has not been made available to them as it is in other cases.
	As for indictment without a jury, some legal teams representing men who say they are innocent of sexual abuse crimes want such cases, which are very emotive, to be heard by a judge and panel. I understand why that is desirable. All of us who have seen press reports produced before such cases go to court can well imagine the impact that has. However, I think that addressing the inadequacies of police procedures, and also reviewing the discretion of the press, would obviate the need for trial by judge.
	I cannot agree with the proposal concerning double jeopardy. My experience of such cases suggests that although some men are acquitted, the police have formed a view of them. I believe that they will continue to trawl for further witnesses until they get their man. I suppose I could accept double jeopardy in some circumstances, but my confidence in the police has been badly eroded.
	As for evidence of bad character, a witness's bad character is a positive benefit, as the prosecution normally asserts that the witness has a bad character because of the abuse that he or she has suffered. I cannot comment on the validity of such statements, but I believe there is a strong argument for allowing the defence to determine the validity of witnesses, many of whom have serious mental health problems or convictions for perjury. Indeed, this proposal has been considered by the Attorney-General following the collapse of the Damilola case. I hope that it can be considered again during this Bill's passage. Bringing into court a victim who is not fit to give evidence is an abuse of the victim.
	I want three further matters to be considered in the Bill. I want full declaration of intent with regard to the claiming of compensation, and a complete ban on payments to witnesses. Compensation in any payment form invariably corrupts the outcome of a case. I want anonymity for people who are accused of sex abuse crimes. Hundreds of lives have been ruined, and even where suspects are found innocent, they never recover from the damage caused by these accusations, and their families and children continue to suffer. Lifting anonymity following a conviction would still allow the victims to advance complaints.
	Most importantly, I want the terms of reference of the Criminal Cases Review Commission to be changed, so that it is able to consider cases that it currently cannot. At the moment, the CCRC's terms of reference allow it to refer cases back to the Court of Appeal only if a technical error has been committed during the conduct of a case, or if new evidence has been advanced. However, there is never new evidence in such cases, and technical failure is very difficult to establish. The CCRC's terms of reference should therefore be extended to enable cases to be referred on the basis that there has been a miscarriage of justice. Unless this change is introduced, many men currently in prison who are believed to be innocent will die there.

Graham Allen: I begin by placing on the record my thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for Eastwood (Mr. Murphy), and to his opposite number, the hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs. Gillan), whose astute management of business allowed every Member who wanted to speak to get in. That success is a tribute to their skills. I also hope that the Procedure Committee will revisit the question of putting the list of speakers on the back of the Speaker's Chair, so that colleagues do not have to endure the agony of not knowing whether they are going to be able to speak. However, that issue is for another day.
	At times, today's debate reminded me of going to a soccer match, reading the report the next day and wondering whether one actually attended the match. I thought that I was here to discuss the Criminal Justice Bill, but I discovered that it had already been commandeered by some of the usual suspects, the rounding up of whom we have talked about in another context. Perhaps they could be described as the civil liberties lobby. Some of them are born again Conservative civil libertarians, which is wonderful to see. The lawyerly representatives of producer interests were out in force, along with those who are rightly preoccupied with some of the vital, if esoteric, issues of high legality: double jeopardy, hearsay, previous convictions, and so on.
	I want to try to retrieve this Bill, and to return it to some of its original purposes and perspectives. For the great majority of my constituents, such high drama is meaningless. Instead, they have to cope with the daily dramas caused by lesser offences and antisocial behaviouractivities that rarely, if ever, go before a jury, and which still less elicit stirring defences of ancient liberties. Nevertheless, such activities degrade and impoverish the ordinary life of the community. The civic liberty of those ordinary people has long been lost, but their condition goes unremarked by a legal elite that has robbed them of their law, just as certainly asI am afraidwe have occasionally distanced them from our representative democracy. They will judge this Bill by its determination and ability to reduce vandalism, graffiti, shoplifting and domestic theft, the stealing and abandoning of cars, and street brawls. They want this Bill to reduce the ugly, un-neighbourly behaviour that they see and hear around them: litter, noise, foul language, and alcohol and other drug excesses. They want this Bill to provide faster and more efficient justice. They want to be assured that the same small core of repeat offenders will not be left endlessly at large in the community, unpunished and unreformed. They want the Bill to ensure that witnesses are not intimidated and that trials are not delayed by bureaucracy and procedural trickery sometimes masquerading as civil liberty. They want the Bill to provide clear and consistent sentencing, not because they are vindictive but simply because they want to have the confidence that the criminal justice system is working for them.
	The lawour lawmust be repatriated to those people. It must address the reality of their lives. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary should make no apology for that. We all know him to be an honourable and affable man, but he should not back down easily on some of the proposals in the Bill. We do not want a repeat of what happened with the mode of trial proposals, with people able to pick and choose their preferred type of trial. That does not go down well on some of the estates in Nottingham, North. Neither do we want the Home Secretary to back down in the way that happened when chief constables were able to decide which Government policies they would like to implement and which they preferred to put on one side.
	I am afraid that that pick-and-mix legality has no place in tackling some serious problems that do not involve esoteric, philosophical musings about civil liberties. The problems about which I am concerned are to do with the liberties of my constituents on my estates. Their concerns need to be addressed, and the House should not follow its tendency to go in for lawyerly debate and discussion. That leaves most people cold, and deeply dissatisfied with a criminal justice system that does not deliver for them.
	Not only must justice be seen to be done, it must be understood to be done. Those are the tests of the Bill proposed by constituents in my relatively tough area of Nottingham, North. I hope that they will get new hope from the Bill. They will welcome the promise, in the forthcoming courts Bill, of better support and protection for victims and witnesses. They will welcome the commitment in this Bill to greater clarity and certainty in sentencing. The Government cannot do too much to make sentencers explain exactly what a sentence means and to correct the widespread perception that a prisoner released to serve the second half of a sentence in the community is, in effect, getting out early.
	When we reach the portion of the Bill devoted to sentencing, I hope that the Government will make sentencers distinguish clearly between a sentence's different purposes, and ascribe an element of a sentence to each purpose. For instance, they would have to say that so much of a sentence was for punishment, so much for deterrence, and so much for restitution or rehabilitation. With long sentences, I hope that the Government will consider allowing sentencers to set educational targets as part of the rehabilitation element.
	Although it is welcome, in isolation the Bill cannot solve the problem of offending behaviour, in my constituency or anywhere else. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary recognises that, and is carrying through the approach set out in the White Paper, which dwelt on the importance of the multiagency and interdepartmental approach. I am pleased that my right hon. Friend has decided not only to look at the criminal justice system in its entirety, but to strengthen its relationship with other agencies that aim to reduce offending in the community.
	That can be seen most obviously in the proposals for drug-related offending and for the supervision of dangerous offenders in the community. However, as has been noted by hon. Members of all parties, just as important are the sure start schemes that work with children under five years of age, and the vigilance of health workers, health visitors and primary school teachers, who must institute early remedial action.
	It is a tragic waste that agencies and professional experts so often come together only after someone has offended. Society must be prepared to intervene earlier. Again, that will cause some screams from civil libertarians, but we must look at the possibility of intervening earlier, with the fullest possible professional assessment and support, before a crime or tragedy happens. The cost of delayto the individual involved, the child, the growing human being and, above all, the wider societyis incalculable.
	My right hon. Friend will know how much the success of the Bill depends on issues that are outside it. The impact of Government economic success, not least in creating jobs for young people, has been one of our foremost crime prevention measures. The need to be clear about the role of the police and the deployment of record numbers of officers is irrelevant if they are not on our streets and seen to be doing their job. The Home Secretary needs to reconsider how we get chief constables to operate under their operational responsibilities in a way that reflects the collective desire of the House to see community policing work.
	I am delighted to see in his place my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, who has responsibility for drugs. Another part of a co-ordinated approach has to be a national education policy for drugs education. It cannot be left to chance or to isolated and sporadic if well meaning efforts, but must be co-ordinated nationally. We will stand condemned if, by the end of our second term in office, we do not have a national roll-out of a drugs education policy. I look forward to my hon. Friend's statement later this week.
	My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary will know from his experience in education that a major element in preventing offending is to engage local communities in educationnot only children but people of every age. It does not simply mean cracking down on truanting, although that it important, but giving the whole community the belief that education is the pathway to ambition and personal prosperity. Unfortunately, for reasons that no one has analysed, young people in my constituency do not have that belief. My constituency sends fewer youngsters to university than any other in the UK. We are looking at that, and I ask my right hon. Friend to keep that interest in education because of its connection with reducing offending.
	This is a long and ambitious Bill. Certain parts of it are destined to be failures; indeed, we have had failures in all previous efforts made to reform the criminal justice system. It follows a series of Bills that have attempted to address these problems. Once again, a failing of our institution in tackling crime is to ignore the front-line professionals and the public who could help us with some of the answers. That is why I am sorry that the Government did not submit the Bill to pre-legislative scrutiny. None the less, I pay tribute to the brief and brave effort of the Home Affairs Committee to give us some background on the Bill. However, I am afraid that that is not as adequate as having proper online scrutiny which would have produced a better Bill.
	The Government and the House would have been enriched by ideas and comments from the front linepeople in neighbourhood watches, front-line staff in the police, probation and court services, victims and witnesses. We could have put right straight away areas of practice that will need further legislation, rather than struggling in Committee in our ritualised way.
	We have denied the public the understanding and ownership of these much needed measures. Instead of being the culmination of a national debate, these necessary and welcome measures feel hasty and imposed and will need to be revisited. I hope very much that the Government will learn this lesson and that any future Bills of this nature that are amenable to genuine public consultation will be consulted on early, so that when we come to our formal processes, we will make better law. I commend the Bill and hope that it finds safe passage through the House.

Dominic Grieve: First, I have to declare an interest as a barrister. However, speaking for myself, this has been the most interesting Second Reading debate that I have ever attended in the Chamber because of the sheer diversity of views. I am sure that one of the reasons for that was the way in which the Home Secretary set the tone for the debate in presenting the Bill. The contributions that I heard were all illuminating and suggest that a great deal will be able to be done in Committee, a point that I will return to later.
	The hon. Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen) set a tone that was slightly different from that of other contributors, as he admitted himself. His speech provides a good starting point. He said, rightly, that he hoped for great things from the Bill but accepted that many connected provisions, which would ensure its success, had not been included.
	The hon. Gentleman is right. We are legislating on only one aspect of the criminal justice system. Many of the concerns that he raised, which I have no difficulty in sharingespecially as regards the anxieties of his constituentscannot be solved by the Bill because it relates only to that percentage of those who commit offences who are arrested and brought before the courts. The vast majority are not.
	A point that the hon. Gentleman may want to bear in mind is that as all human systems are fallible, we have to accept that, however well-intentioned we are, many of the sentences or ideas that we come up with often do not work. Only a few days ago, the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Leeds, Central (Hilary Benn), in answer to a letter from my hon. Friend the Member for Woking (Mr. Malins), explained how drug treatment and testing orders were working.
	We discover that between October 2000 and 30 September 2002, 9,042 orders were made, but it is accepted that in just one six-month period during that time, 2,175 breach proceedings were instigated, and that only 902 cases resulted in termination of the order for failure to comply. If that is extrapolated over the two-year period, it suggests that those extremely well-intentioned provisions are not working. We need to bear that in mind when considering how to reassure the public.
	I hope that I shall be able to do justice to some of the many contributions to the debate.

Bob Ainsworth: May I suggest to the hon. Gentleman that his assessment of the nature of addiction and of how it can be dealt with under DTTOs needs a little more analysis?

Dominic Grieve: I did not cite those figures as a criticism; I know that the Government were well intentioned when they introduced the orders. However, the letter gives cause for concern as to whether the system, which was designed to ensure that offenders were kept off drugs by regular treatment and testing, is working. It rather suggests[Interruption.] I do not want to get into a dispute with the Minister. We cannot get away from the fact that the figures suggest the contrarythat a good idea has not worked.
	The hon. Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin) expressed serious concerns, especially on previous convictions. I hope that the Government will bear those points in mind. I shall try to return to them later.
	The hon. and learned Member for Dudley, North (Ross Cranston) made an interesting speech, one of the few that was broadly supportive of the entirety of the Government's position. Two points arose from what he said in what was a civil lawyer's speech. What shone through it was the belief that criminal cases can be solved on the balance of probabilities by throwing everything into the pot and expecting that elusive commodity called the truth to emerge. A similar belief underpinned comments made to me by Lord Falconer. However, I do not think that the court system can ever be like that.
	On the contrary, we all seek the truth. Doubtless we shall find it on the great day of judgment, but until then we should be very wary of running around in search of the truth and, in the process, blinding ourselves to the fact that it may be more sensible not to do that but to ensureas our criminal justice system doesthat in any given case we are sure of a person's guilt before we convict him. The hon. and learned Member for Medway (Mr. Marshall-Andrews) made that point with great force.
	My right hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) made a most powerful speech. I hope that her comments, taken with those of my hon. Friends the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr. Gibb) and for Isle of Wight (Mr. Turner), will highlight the fact that it is possible to believe that one should be tough on crime while not wishing to see injustice perpetrated in trying to arrive at that position. That underpins our philosophy. I dare say that it underpins the philosophy of many hon. Members who have contributed this evening, but we cannot get away from that point because a totalitarian system will never deliver justice. It may fill the prisons, but there will be many innocent people in them.
	That point was also well made by the hon. Member for Hackney, South and Shoreditch (Mr. Sedgemore). I was interested in his comments about prejudicial hearsaya very complicated issue on which the Bill will require extremely close scrutiny, although I accept that there may be circumstances in which it is proper to relax the current rules on hearsay.
	I wish to refer to the speech made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr. Lilley). I very much enjoyed his defence of the jury system, not just because it delivers proper resultsit produces as good an assessment of guilt or innocence as we can getbut because it involves the participation of the community in the criminal justice system and underpins our liberties in doing so. It ensures that our system of justice does not pitch the state against the person, but in fact involves a condemnation that comes from those in the community who have heard and assessed the evidence.
	The jury system is an immense advantage in our system of justice, but the hon. and learned Member for Dudley, North seemed to like the French inquisitorial system. Well, I am half French; I know France well. The French newspapers cannot be opened without reading about one scandal after another involving miscarriages of justice brought about by the over-zealousness of inquisitorial magistrates, backed by their extensive powers and, in fact, by the lack of an adequate jury system to safeguard defendants. I would not wish this country to follow that example.
	The hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon) made some very important comments on restorative justice. Of course much of that is outside the scope of the Bill, which highlights our great need to address the issues that go to the root of crime, rather than simply being obsessed with procedure or easy fixes.
	I was also pleased with the comments on jury trial made by the hon. Member for Stafford (Mr. Kidney), but I was not persuaded by his views on jury tampering. Where are the cases? Where is the evidence of the cases that relate to jury tampering? I have not yet come across them to determine the extent of the problem.
	The hon. Member for Braintree (Mr. Hurst) made a speech calling for caution, which I welcome in relation to the Government's proposals. I was interested in the robust speech made by the hon. Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Singh), and I fully accept that crime has become a major problem for our constituents irrespective of whether they live in middle-class areas or inner cities. I assure him that when I open a speech on crime to my constituents or any new audience, I simply highlight the fact that the view that crime has risen exponentially and is a real problem is not some derangement. [Interruption.] The Home Secretary has just arrived back in the Chamber, so perhaps he will finish hearing what I have to say.
	In the 1940s, there were 600 robberies per annum; there are now 95,000. There were 55,000 burglaries per annum; there are now more than 800,000. At one stage, the figure peaked at 1.3 million. That is an exponential rise, especially as the population of this country has risen only by about 14 million in that period. Those comments have as much relevance and application to Conservative Governments as to Labour Governments, but they should remind us to be very wary of quick fixes.
	I should mention my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous), who called for local justice. I did not have a chance to intervene in the speech made by the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Stinchcombe), but he will find that I will have a chance to deal with at least one point that he made in the remarks that follow.
	Let me turn to the main issues in the Bill. First, there are some good things. I am delighted with part 6 and the speeding up of procedure. I agree that there are vested interests that stand in the way of that, and I have no truck with them whatever. At least one of those vested interests, however, in my experience as a barrister, is the judiciary. We cannot avoid the fact that some of the delays in the criminal justice system are due to professional judges. I have had direct experience of that, and we must tackle that as well as the activities of lawyers.
	I am also pleased about the sentencing provisions, although I would hope for some reassurance from the Minister. Sentencing plus and sentencing minus are key reforms. I had always understood that they would accompany the raising of the magistrates' sentencing powers. If it is suggested that magistrates' sentencing powers are to be raised without sentencing plus and sentencing minus being introduced at the same time, however, I fear that we will see a massive increase in the prison population, and that the system will not be in place to deal with it in the manner that was envisaged in the Halliday report.

Simon Hughes: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that, linked to those two things, which I agree must go together, must be the resourcesalmost as soon as the Bill becomes lawso that custody plus and custody minus can be implemented? A resource implementation of five or 10 years hence is clearly ludicrous if magistrates courts are to have real alternatives to custody.

Dominic Grieve: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is right. I cannot see how this centrepiece of the Bill, which is in many ways its key part, will work if there is a dysfunctional system in which the parts have not been brought together.
	Much has been said about jury trial, but I want to make one or two further remarks. The point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) in an intervention seemed to be right. I do not understand the criticism of jury trial and the reason why we are to get rid of it, as it seems that the Government have answered their own question in the Bill. It sets out to suggest that people may opt for trial by judge alone as an alternative that the state sees as identical in quality to jury trial, yet it puts in caveats to deny it to certain categories of individual to provide public reassurance. If the Minister thinks carefully about that issue, he should incline to the view that the jury trial proposals should be dropped.
	Similarly, it was suggested that long trials would be a problem for jurors. It was also suggested, which surprised me, that we should be concerned if trials were broken up. My experience as a barrister is that the best service that judges ever do in trials is to order the severance of indictments. Far from leading to bad justice, that means that issues are discussed much faster, and if, at the end of the first trial, someone is found not guilty, the prosecution tends to think long and hard before proceeding with the second, and if it does not succeed on the second, it thinks long and hard before proceeding with the third. That is a great cost saving, and if the defendant is convicted on the first, he is sometimes willing to plead guilty to the indictments on the second. I therefore do not accept that argument.

Graham Allen: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that some of the esoteric legal games about which he is talking are the very things that drive witnesses away from participating in the process? The longer the delays, and the more options that are available, the easier it is for defendants to get at witnesses. That is not only prevalent in gangland cases but in the case of abandoned cars, antisocial behaviourindeed, right across the board.

Dominic Grieve: I appreciate the strength of the hon. Gentleman's feelings, and we can certainly look at the matter carefully in Committee, but he has not understood my point. I disagree with him entirely that severance of indictments by judges to have short trials on discrete issues leads to any of the mischief with which he is concerned.
	Further detail and careful consideration are needed on the rules on hearsay. In relation to double jeopardy, we have centred on scientific evidence and the question of DNA. A meeting that I had with DNA experts only yesterday, however, suggests that it may be of much less use than we think, because the conditions in which scientific samples were collected in the 1960s and 1970s properly raise issues of contamination that may make subsequent DNA analysis worthless. We should be wary of getting carried away with the idea that there is a quick fix. However, I accept that double jeopardy should be examined carefully.
	I shall wind up my remarks to give the Minister a chance to reply, but I make a final point. We have had a good debate. If the Home Secretary's words are true, I am confident that, in Committee and subsequent stages, the Bill can be improved and turned into a worthwhile monument of the House's endeavour. However, I make a simple plea. It is all too easy to trivialise the issues and to play to the gallery. The Prime Minister's remarks at Question Time today did not encourage me in the view that the measured approach that we have adopted today will survive if there is genuine debate when matters are raised that are contrary to what the Government are trying to achieve. There are good things in the Bill, and we can make a positive impact. However, if we get carried away with rhetoric, we will fail the country and the criminal justice system.

Hilary Benn: I begin by declaring an interest: I am not a lawyer. However, I agree entirely with a lawyer, the hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve), when he described this as an excellent and considered debate. I will do my best in the time available to respond to as many points as possible. Where that is not possible, I shall write to hon. Members.
	Although this a complex and lengthy Bill that will keep us occupied for many happy and occasionally disputatious hours in Committee, it is important to keep in sight the purpose of these green pages. The purpose was set out clearly by my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary in his measured opening speech, and by the right hon. Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin) when he said at column 289 on 17 July 2002, XThe system needs reform. I agree. That is what the Bill seeks to do. It seeks reform to make the criminal justice system work more effectively in the search for truth.

Desmond Turner: There is one problem that the Bill does not currently address. More than 200 children under two are either killed or seriously injured every year in their homes, and only about a quarter of those cases result in prosecution of any kind. Can my hon. Friend assure me that that point will at least be considered in Committee?

Hilary Benn: I am happy to assure my hon. Friend that we will consider that point although, currently, it is not directly covered by the Bill.
	The reform is about trying to increase confidence in the system and about developing and making available a range of sentences, including effective community penalties. It seeks to do all this in a way that upholds the fundamental principles of presumption of innocence and the prosecution having to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt.
	The right hon. Member for West Dorset conjured up a vision of the queue before the custody sergeant. It is an issue with which we should be concerned but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Singh) pointed out, clause 3 on street bail will, I hope, shorten that queue. The proposal has been widely welcomed.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin), the Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee, referred to amendments to the PACE code. We are happy to consider the arrangements for parliamentary approval and guidance for time limits on custodial bail.
	I say to the hon. Members for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes) and for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Mrs. Brooke) and to my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Dudley, North (Ross Cranston) that I welcome very much their welcome for the new sentencing structurecustody minus and custody plus. We have to ensure that it is properly resourced. I also welcome the theme that has run through a number of speeches on the importance of rehabilitation.
	The hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon) asked about Northern Ireland, and whether some of the provisions will be extended there. For example, those on disclosure, double jeopardy and prosecution appeals will be extended there and others could be so extended if my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland wishes. A review of sentencing is currently going on in Northern Ireland, and I agree very much with the points the hon. Lady made about the importance of restorative justice.
	The Bill will in part help to tackle the issues addressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen). His eloquent words expressed the anger, fear, bewilderment and even sometimes the tears of my constituents who stand before me not understanding what is happening. They cannot cope and cannot understand why they have to live their lives in the way that they do.
	Three main issues occupied hon. Members. The first was trial by jury. We propose to amend the principle of trial by jury in a very limited number of cases. One or two hon. Members used the phrase Xa slippery slope. I think it is more a friction incline. We have changed our mind on mode of trial, a fact acknowledged most eloquently by my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Mr. Kidney). The mode of trial proposals, which we are not proceeding with because we have listened to the arguments, would have removed jury trial from about 20,000 defendants a year. The proposals in this Bill will affect perhaps fewer than a hundred cases a year. The right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr. Lilley) asked, quite reasonably, about the extended sentencing power for magistrates, and mentioned 6,000 fewer jury trials. Notwithstanding that change, defendants will retain the right, if they wish, to opt for jury trial in either-way cases.
	There are only two motivations for the proposed change: one is to protect jury members from the burden of long complex trials, a point acknowledged by the Select Committee in its report today and the second is to protect the integrity of our legal process from those who attempt to subvert it. In the light of some speeches, in particular by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Medway (Mr. Marshall-Andrews) and the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden, I simply ask the House to consider whether our proposal is a fundamental assault on the principle of jury trial, or are there, as the Select Committee reasonably said in its report, Xcogent reasons and Xcogent arguments for change in two specific sets of circumstances?

Simon Hughes: Does the Minister accept that there are reasonable arguments, although he might not yet have been persuaded by them, for finding ways in which we enable people to cope with complex fraud cases more easily? Juries could be found and we would not have to cause inconvenience to people who would find a long trial difficult. There are alternative ways to deal with the problem, which do not involve removing jury trial. Will the Government reconsider that?

Hilary Benn: I am much persuaded by the comments and experiences of judges who have tried to use the system in some of the longest running fraud trials. The Maxwell case has been mentioned. Blue Arrow is another example. Those judges have expressed great frustration about the difficulties of trying to accommodate the wish to include all the evidence and the pressure to separate bits of it so that juries can cope. The Government's fundamental concern relates to the burden on individual jury members and the damage that that does to the principle of representative juries.
	The second issue relates to double jeopardy. The hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr. Gibb) asked who came up with the idea of making changes to double jeopardy. The change was recommended by the Law Commission, Lord Justice Auld, the Home Affairs Committee and, dare I say it, the 2001 Conservative party manifesto, not a source of advice that I would usually pray in aid as a guide to policy, but I am happy to make an exception in this case.
	We are worried about miscarriages of justice. That is why the safeguards are in the Bill. However, it is because we are concerned about miscarriages of justice that we want to change the law on double jeopardy. If the purpose of justice is to acquit the innocent and bring the guilty to accountand it isthen why not put compelling new evidence before a jury for the reasons set out passionately by my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, West? Of course the ultimate safeguardthe real answer to the question of whether such a trial can be fairis the jury: we must trust the jury.
	Thirdly, I turn to previous convictions and bad conduct. I recognise the fears and genuine concerns expressed about the impact of the proposal. However, anybody who reads what Sir Robin Auld had to say about the issue, particularly about his own reluctance in this matter, which he acknowledged in his report, will see that the current system is not clear and does not make sense. The Law Commission said:
	XThe present law suffers from a number of defects . . . they constitute a haphazard mixture of statute and common law rules which produce inconsistent and unpredictable results, in crucial respects distort the trial process, make tactical considerations paramount and inhibit the defence in presenting its true case to the fact-finders.
	In his opening remarks, the right hon. Member for West Dorset expressed surprise that we are proposing to allow the admittance not only of previous convictions but of previous acquittals, and I simply point out that that is already the case. Paragraph 287 of the explanatory memorandum, which refers to the case of Z, says that
	Xthe House of Lords held that there was no special rule that required the exclusion of evidence that a person had been involved in earlier offences, even if they had been acquitted of those crimes, provided that that evidence was otherwise admissible.
	On previous convictions and previous conductI think that this is the answer to the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Stinchcombe)the key safeguard is that on application by the defendant under clause 84(3) the judge will have to be satisfied that the probative value of that evidence outweighs its prejudicial effect. In other words, the judge must ask whether admitting the evidence would adversely affect the fairness of the proceedings. If so, it would not be admitted. Again, the ultimate safeguard remainsthe jury. We should trust the jury to weigh the evidence in those cases.

Dominic Grieve: I am mindful of the comments made by the hon. and learned Member for Medway (Mr. Marshall-Andrews) who said that he did not think that the rules would change very much. Yet the way in which the Government have gone on about them, particularly to the media, suggests that they make a fundamental change in procedure by allowing juries to know about previous convictions. It has to be one or the other. I think that the Bill will allow serious changes to take place unless, of course, judges, in their discretion, simply make sure that those changes are mitigated, and that is not what I understood the Minister to be trying to achieve.

Hilary Benn: The Bill aims to achieve much greater clarity and consistency in the way in which that evidence is admitted, but that process is subject to what must, in light of the concerns that have been expressed, be the ultimate safeguardthe judge making a judgment.
	Another reason why the debate has been so good is that we have clarified the fundamental arguments and I look forward to those being taken forward in Committee. However, I hope that the House will recognise that this is not an argument with the legal profession; it is not about undermining fundamental principles and it is not about tilting the scales of justice against the accused. I do not believe that treating victims better means treating defendants any less fairly.
	This is about the 30,000 trials a year that never take place because witnesses are intimidated or are too frightened to turn up. It is about processes leading to better-prepared cases and swifter hearings. It is about putting relevant evidence before the court so that it can judge the facts and discover the truth. It is about better protection for our constituents from dangerous offenders. It is about new community sentences that will help to rehabilitate. It is about looking, for the first time, at the effectiveness of sentences in preventing reoffending. It is ultimately about trying to rebuild confidence in the criminal justice system. Those sound to me like pretty good principles. In the end, this is about changes that I hope will make a difference to the lives of the people that we represent because we are seeking to reform the system, and for that reason I commend the Bill to the House.

Question put, That the Bill be now read a Second time:
	The House divided: Ayes 303, Noes 67.

Question accordingly agreed to.
	Bill read a Second time.

CRIMINAL JUSTICE BILL (PROGRAMME)

Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Orders [28 June 2001 and 29 October 2002],
	That the following provisions shall apply to the Criminal Justice Bill:
	Committal
	1) The Bill shall be committed to a Standing Committee.
	Proceedings in Standing Committee
	(2) Proceedings in the Standing Committee shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion on 27th February 2003.
	(3) The Standing Committee shall have leave to sit twice on the first day on which it meets.
	Consideration and Third Reading
	(4) Proceedings on consideration shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion one hour before the moment of interruption on the day on which those proceedings are commenced.
	(5) Proceedings on Third Reading shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at the moment of interruption on the day on which proceedings on consideration are commenced.
	(6) Sessional Order B (programming committees) made by the House on 28th June 2001 shall not apply to proceedings on consideration and Third Reading.
	Other proceedings (7)
	Any other proceedings on the Bill (including any proceedings on consideration of Lords Amendments or any further messages from the Lords) may be programmed.[Keith Hill.]
	The House divided: Ayes 345, Noes 58.

Question accordingly agreed to.

CRIMINAL JUSTICE BILL [MONEY]

Queen's recommendation having been signified
	Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 52(1)(a) (Money resolutions and ways and means resolutions in connection with bills),
	That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Criminal Justice Bill, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of money provided by Parliament of
	(1) any expenditure incurred by a Minister of the Crown by virtue of the Act, and
	(2) any increase attributable to the Act in the sums which by virtue of any other Act are payable out of money provided by Parliament.[Mr. Sutcliffe.]
	Question agreed to.

ESTIMATES, 200102

Ordered,
	That a Bill be brought in upon the resolutions agreed earlier this day: And that the Chairman of Ways and Means, Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Paul Boateng, Dawn Primarolo, Ruth Kelly and John Healey do prepare and bring it in.

Consolidated Fund (Appropriation) Bill

Ruth Kelly accordingly presented a Bill to modify limits on non-operating appropriations in aid set for the year that ended on 31st March 2002: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time tomorrow and to be printed [Bill 11].

DELEGATED LEGISLATION

Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 118(6) (Standing Committees on Delegated Legislation),

Northern Ireland

That the draft Environment (Northern Ireland) Order 2002, which was laid before this House on 25th November, be approved.[Mr. Sutcliffe.]
	Question agreed to.
	Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 118(6) (Standing Committees on Delegated Legislation),

Police

That the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (Codes of Practice) (Statutory Powers of Stop and Search) Order 2002, dated 11th November, a copy of which was laid before this House on 13th November, be approved.[Mr. Sutcliffe.]
	Question agreed to.
	Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 118(6) (Standing Committees on Delegated Legislation),

International Development

That the draft International Development Association (Thirteenth Replenishment) Order 2002, which was laid before this House on 20th November, be approved.[Mr. Sutcliffe.]
	Question agreed to.

Modernisation of the House of Commons

Ordered,
	That Mr. John Taylor be discharged from the Select Committee on Modernisation of the House of Commons and Mr. Andrew Mitchell be added.[Mr. Sutcliffe.]
	Question agreed to.

PETITION
	  
	Food Supplements

Paul Truswell: I wish to present a petition from my constituent Mr. C. Foster, signed by 340 of my constituents and others supporting the campaign for choice in natural health products. I understand that the petition forms a small part of a national petition that has so far collected nearly 1.1 million signatures. It reads as follows.
	XThe Petition of Consumers for Health Choice and its supporters declares that consumers in the United Kingdom have for many years maintained good health by choosing to take safe vitamin and mineral supplements and herbal remedies; and fears that the European Food Supplements Directive and the proposed European Directive on Traditional Medicinal Products would severely restrict the number and range of such products on general retail sale in the future.
	The petitions therefore request that the House of Commons requires that the Secretary of State for Health does all in his power to protect the rights of UK consumers by ensuring that such European legislation does not unnecessarily and unacceptably restrict the availability of natural health products.
	And the petitioners remain, etc.
	To lie upon the Table.

Tenancy deposit schemes

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.[Mr. Sutcliffe.]

Anne Campbell: I am very grateful to be given the opportunity to discuss the topic of tenancy deposit schemes, because it is of great relevance to many of my constituents in Cambridge.
	The idea of securing an Adjournment debate on this topic arose as a result of my visiting Anglia polytechnic university to hold one of my regular student advice surgeries. While I was there, I spoke to Emma Gray, the education and welfare officer at the student union. She told me that unreturned deposits are a major worry for many of the students that she sees.
	There are more than 8,000 registered APU students on the Cambridge campus alone. The university has only 836 bed spaces under its direct controlin its halls of residence, or in the shared housing that it managesso nine out of 10 students at APU are living in accommodation in the private rented sector. Although unreturned deposits are a major problem for APU students, they are much less of a problem for Cambridge university students who, for the most part, are accommodated in colleges, or in houses owned or rented by the colleges.
	The APU accommodation office has 650 landlords on its books, with whom there is an agreement to advertise accommodation within the campus, and to try to resolve any problems. APU students would expect to pay about 80 a week for a bed-sit or a room in a shared house. A standard deposit is about four times this amount: 320 per student. A shared house with four or five students will therefore collect a deposit of between 1,200 and 1,600a sizeable sum. This money is usually very important to the students, because they may be relying on the return of their deposits to secure a deposit on the next rented accommodation.
	Another problem is that APU has a very high proportion of students from abroadinternational students, as they are known. At the end of their studies, such students are usually keen to get back home as quickly as possible. They do not want to hang around to argue with their landlord about the return of their deposits. Many landlords therefore enjoy a windfall at the end of the tenancy, and there is a greater chance of that happening if they delay handing back the deposit.
	I would readily agree with those critics who say that an 18-year-old student living away from home for the first time may not be the ideal tenant, but many young people are responsible and will look after their accommodation well. I think it true that most tenants will respect the property, particularly if they have clear contracts that make specific mention of the standards of cleanliness expected on relinquishing their tenancy. However, the current system is weighted in favour of the landlord, and the non-return of deposits for no good reason is a problem to which the student or other tenant appears to have little redress.
	The most common reason given for keeping all or part of a deposit is for cleaning after students have vacated the premises. I was told of one student who, although he had repainted his room in the original colour, was charged for its being painted again. The student was of course outraged; he felt that that was a way for the landlord to make any claim that he liked, without providing proof that the work actually took place, or that it cost the amount specified. On being asked to produce invoices from the cleaning contractors, the landlord was unable to do so.
	An international student had part of her deposit kept back. The landlord had provided what the student felt was a magic number for the cost of cleaning that took place after the student had left the premises. In fact, the landlord listed all the cleaning that had taken the place, and how much it cost. When the student returned to visit the premises, she found that the landlord had done none of the cleaning or repair of fixtures that he said he had done, and for which she had paid.
	Such complaints are very common. My local citizens advice bureau receives an average of five complaints a week about non-returned deposits. Because of the high proportion of students in my constituency, the complaints tend to be clustered around the beginnings and ends of terms, when students change their accommodation. Those figures suggest the scale of the problem in Cambridge, but about 20 per cent. of tenants nationally have the same problem with deposits that are not returned for reasons that they do not consider to be completely fair.
	It is important to note that many reputable landlords run a professional and fair service in providing accommodation. One landlord was especially commended by my local CAB for putting deposits in a separate account and paying them back, with interest, on the day that tenancies ended. The three main professional bodies are the Association of Residential Letting Agents, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors and the National Association of Estate Agents. They require members to hold deposit money in a separate client account. I am pleased to say that those bodies also e-mailed me to tell me that they all strongly support the tenancy deposit scheme.
	The tenancy deposit scheme was introduced as a pilot by the Government in 1999. When I applied for this debate, I did not know that the Government were on the point of publishing a consultation paper, but I have since found it extremely useful. It is called XTenancy Money: Probity and Protection and from it I learned that two schemes have been piloted.
	The first option is the custodial option, which requires landlords or agents acting on their behalf to place a tenancy deposit in a ring-fenced account operated by the Nationwide building society. When disputes occur, the independent housing ombudsman promptly decides who is entitled to what proportion, and instructs Nationwide to pay each party accordingly.
	The second option is the insured option, which enables landlords or agents to hold the deposit during the tenancy if they take out an insurance policy with an accredited insurance company. In the pilot scheme, that company was the CGU guarantee society. In a dispute, if the independent housing ombudsman determines that some or all of the deposit should be returned to the tenant, the scheme insurers are instructed to arrange speedy payment. The insurers then ask the landlord or agent to reimburse that sum within 10 working days. Both schemes seem very good, and there has been much satisfaction with their operation.
	The Government so far have spent 490,000 on the pilot schemes, and a further 300,000 has been allocated to extend them for a further two years. The tenancy deposit scheme has been quite expensive for the landlord and agents who have participated. Although the target was to attract 1,500 landlords and agents covering 30,000 tenancies, only 102 landlords and 74 agents had joined the tenancy deposit scheme by June 2002.
	I am sure that that has nothing to do with the quality of the scheme or the way in which it has been handled by the independent housing ombudsman. All the arrangements appear to have been made very satisfactorily, and the schemes have been greeted with a high degree of satisfaction from participants. However, it is probably not surprising that there has been a lower take-up than anticipated. The good landlords will join and are probably already operating a reasonable and fair system. Of the 650 landlords used by APU's accommodation office, around 250 operate some kind of tenancy deposit scheme. Those who do not join obviously do not like surrendering control of deposits and probably do not see the need for itthey are the landlords with whom students have the most difficulty. In many cases they probably deliberately use the deposits as a source of extra income to which they are not entitled.
	From the students' point of view there is a definite need for this scheme and I hope that Ministers will be brave and bold in moving it forward. I know that many of the professional organisations that advise tenants on their legal rights are disappointed that the Government feel that they have insufficient evidence to press ahead with a mandatory scheme at present. I was pleased to read that the Government are to encourage more landlords and agents to participate in the pilot scheme, but in my view a voluntary scheme will founder. I urge Ministers to come forward with some new legislation in this area. There is an excellent opportunity in that the forthcoming housing Bill would offer a perfect opportunity for a mandatory tenancy deposit scheme to be introduced.
	If the Government were to be sufficiently brave, the Minister would have the undying gratitude of many of the students who attend Anglia polytechnic university and many of the tenants in my constituency.

Tony McNulty: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Mrs. Campbell) on raising this important issue and enabling the House to examine the new consultation paper, XTenancy Money: Probity and Protection. The Government launched it less than a week ago, so I also congratulate my hon. Friend for her timeliness in getting the issue on the agenda. It is clearly a matter of particular concern, given the number of students in her constituency, but the problem goes way beyond constituencies that have many student tenantsit affects the entire private sector.
	The Government are determined to improve standards in the private rented sector. We see it as part of our plans and policies in terms of the wider housing agenda. A bigger, better private rented sector can help increase choice, flexibility and mobility in housing. Private renting should provide a safe, attractive and cost-effective alternative to owner-occupation or the social rented sector.
	Like my hon. Friend, I recognise that most private landlords are well intentioned and anxious to do a good and responsible job, but we need to encourage all private landlords to value their tenants and maintain their properties to a decent standard. Too often we get letters in our mailbags from constituents who feel, rightly or wrongly, that they have been ripped off by unscrupulous landlords. That is certainly the case in areas with a large student population.
	Tenants are often afraid that their landlord will retain a deposit unreasonably, and there have been a number of high-profile cases of letting agents misappropriating the moneys of their clients, both tenants and landlords. Many tenants respond to the fear of their deposits being withheld by withholding the final month's rent. That may mean landlords being left without a deposit sufficient to cover any arrears or damage that a tenant may leave behind. So this can lead to a far more widespread and damaging lack of trust and confidence between landlord and tenant than the actual numbers of deposits wrongfully withheld. My hon. Friend alluded to the recent survey of English housing data for 200102, which reveals that of households that had a private tenancy ending in the previous three years, 20 per cent. said that part or all of their deposit had been unreasonably withheld.
	Today's debate is an important chance to focus on these concerns. They relate to standards of management, especially at the lower end of the sector, and they have to be addressed if private renting is to become more a tenure of choice. The Government are determined to find the right solutions to this complex issue, but it is important that we do so with the full co-operation of landlords and tenants. As my hon. Friend said, for the past couple of years we have supported a pilot voluntary self-financing tenancy deposit scheme operated by the independent housing ombudsman, but, as my hon. Friend also said, it has been only a limited success.
	The scheme initially covered five areas: Brent and Camden in London; Brighton and Hove; Birmingham and the west midlands; Norwich and Norfolk; and Merseyside and west Lancashire. However, as larger groups of landlords and agents joined, coverage was extended beyond those areas.
	Landlords or their agents have been able to join either a custodial scheme or an alternative insured optionas described by my hon. Friend. Both involve the independent adjudication of disputes. A tenancy deposit may be placed in a ring-fenced account operated by a licensed deposit taker or safeguarded by insurance with an accredited company. The processes involved have worked and there has been a small but increasing number of adjudications, handled efficiently by the independent housing ombudsman.
	The pilot tenancy deposit scheme offers a model for safeguarding tenants' deposits. However, the pilot had achieved only one tenth of its target take-up of 30,000 tenancies by last March. That indicates, as my hon. Friend suggested, that if only a minority of the more professional landlords participate, there is little prospect of a national scheme that is voluntary and self-financing. A voluntary scheme will not cover the majority of tenants' deposits, let alone the minority of unprofessional landlords who misappropriate tenants' deposits.
	Earlier this year, my noble Friend Lord Falconer said that more time was needed to assess whether the pilot tenancy deposit scheme could operate as a self-financing scheme. He noted that its slow take-up so far had made a strong case for legislation on tenancy deposits. Government funding of the pilot has continued, but we need to reach a view soon on how effective any voluntary arrangement could ever be, and on whether the case for legislation is already proven.
	The most important benefit from continuing with the pilot has been that we have had more time and have obtained more evidence to use in producing the consultation paper that we published last Thursday. We have thus been able to combine a number of elements in the consultation paper. First, there is up-to-date statistical data from the survey of English housing. Secondly, we have incorporated the results of research into the pilot by York university. Thirdly, we took into account the conclusions reached by the Department's auditors on the funding and financial prospects of the pilot tenancy deposit scheme. Fourthly, we used our research of the operation of tenancy deposit schemes in other countries and of other voluntary schemes in the UK. Fifthly, we carried out an economic assessment of the costs and benefits of a mandatory scheme for the purpose of a substantial regulatory impact assessment. Finally, we took on board the views of a steering group that oversaw the operation of the pilot.
	The steering group was composed of representatives of landlords, tenants, local authorities and financial institutions. They have endorsed the thoroughness of our project and the way in which we achieved a balance of views based on factual evidence. The deadline for responses to the consultation is 28 February, and I should not like to prejudice its outcome.
	The paper addresses the following sets of options. First, there are voluntary custodial deposit protection schemes, linked to voluntary accreditation schemes, with deposit protection through the tenancy agreement. That approach would reflect to some extent the approach currently under consideration by the Law Commission in its reform of tenancy law.
	Secondly, there are statutory tenancy money protection schemes, along the same lines as the pilot, with various choices of types of scheme. The choices range from requiring landlords to safeguard tenants by being a member of schemes, such as the pilot, to schemes that are in effect state-run, such as the one operated in New South Wales, in Australia. Thirdly, we have also mentioned the possibility of a statutory bank guarantee scheme such as the one that operates in Belgium.
	The present consultation may lead to a mandatory requirement for landlords to be members of a scheme to safeguard tenants' deposits, but we would not, in the long run, expect such schemes to require Government funding. The views of Department's auditors, set out in an annexe to the consultation paper, criticised the administration of the pilot tenancy deposit scheme. More importantly, they could not see how the existing pilot could develop into a self-financing scheme, given its low level of take-up.
	Hitherto, membership of the pilot has been free, in essence. The independent housing ombudsman, who manages it, is now seeking the modest charge of 1.02 per tenancy. The Government will continue funding the pilot in the next financial year, as my hon. Friend said, and then, following a decision on the results of the consultation, we shall address the future of the pilot.
	As I pointed out earlier, the statistical data showing that 20 per cent. of tenants consider that their deposits were unreasonably withheld, at least in part, cannot be ignored. However, as a regulatory impact assessment included in the consultation paper suggests, the costs of imposing extra costs on the vast majorityas against the benefits for the minorityare finely balanced.
	Consultees need to consider whether the scale of the problem is such that legislation is required, and what the consequences of compulsory membership of a scheme to protect tenants' deposits might be. Would the costs, which are likely to be passed on to tenants, be justified? Could we be sure such a scheme would catch the landlords who are the worst offenders?
	The consultation paper also covers letting agents, although my hon. Friend did not have time to mention them. As I noted earlier, there have been some high-profile cases of agents misappropriating money belonging to clients, both landlords and tenants.
	An annexe to the consultation paper addresses the success of the national approved letting scheme. The government have supported that industry-run voluntary accreditation scheme by funding a free trial for agents who are not members of the professional bodies who set up the scheme. So far, the national approved letting scheme has been a qualified success, but it bears comparison to the pilot tenancy deposit scheme, particularly as it is a voluntary scheme, likely to reach only the more responsible agents. So we are consulting on the way in which letting agents treat landlords' and tenants' money.
	My hon. Friend will forgive me if I do not go into further detail, given that we have only just launched the consultation paper, but I certainly look forward to the results that emerge when the consultation ends on 28 February. As she has said, we need to balance the expectations of tenants and landlords and to move closer to our ultimate goala private rented sector that is more competently run and more capable of helping to meet housing need.
	I would simply add that, yes, we should take cognisance of the concerns expressed by the communities, not just the students, in areas with a high student base, as well as the way in which landlords act in those areas. Again, I congratulate my hon. Friend on raising this important issue and in such a timely fashion. She will forgive me if I do not go into further detail and pre-empt the entire consultation process, but it is right to put those concerns before the House. I believe that the Government are making excellent progress on this important issue. I commend our policies to the House, and hope that all those who have any concerns about this issue will play a full part in the consultation process.
	Question put and agreed to.
	Adjourned accordingly at eight minutes to Eleven o'clock.

Deferred Divisions
	  
	Convention on the Future of Europe

That this House endorses the strategy of Her Majesty's Government on the Convention of the Future of Europe to establish structures for a Union of sovereign member states; rejects the alternative of a federal superstate; and resolves that the Order of 12 June 2002 relating to the Standing Committee on the Convention be renewed for the current session of Parliament.
	The House divided: Ayes 282, Noes 12.

Question accordingly agreed to.

Estimates, 200102

That the limits on non-operating appropriations in aid set for the purposes of section 2 of the Government Resources and Accounts Act 2000 for the year that ended on 31 March 2002 be modified in accordance with HC 121.
	The House divided: Ayes 412, Noes 39.

Question accordingly agreed to.